An Hour of Who a Day

October 4: "Rogue"

On 3 June 2024, between the broadcast of "Dot and Bubble" and this, William Russell, who played Ian Chesterton, passed away at the age of 99. Rather sweetly, the British broadcast of "Rogue" was dedicated to his memory. (Not the Disney+ or the home video release, however; the dedication must have been added after those versions had been locked and distributed.) It's interesting, though, to reflect on just how different an episode "Rogue" is from the stories of Russell starred in back in the early to mid '60s. This is an episode about aliens cosplaying as real people in 19th-century England, while the Doctor has a romantic attraction to the main male guest star. There's no way William Hartnell would have ever agreed to such a thing, but here in 2024 it's a completely reasonable thing for the show to do.

But yes, cosplay! Apparently we have time-traveling bird aliens (the Chuldur, not the sort-of-similar-looking Jacondans from The Twin Dilemma) who wanted to dress up as Bridgerton characters (or the equivalent) not by having a convention but by going to the original time and place and taking over the forms of real people (killing them in the process) and pretending to be them. When you stop to think about it it's an incredibly daft idea, but to the credit of new-to-the-series writers Kate Herron (of Loki fame) and Briony Redman, they make it work. Of course, it doesn't hurt that there are other plotlines moving along to distract you, lest one become too silly at a given moment, but they do a good job of properly balancing all the strands and then making them come together.

Rogue meets the Doctor. ("Rogue") ©BBC

One of the most interesting strands is the titular character, a bounty hunter named Rogue. He's here in 1813 Bath on the trail of the Chuldur, and when he encounters the Doctor, who isn't particularly hiding the fact that he's Not From Around Here, he jumps to the perhaps not unreasonable conclusion that he is in fact the Chuldur. Jonathan Groff, playing Rogue, is clearly having a lot of fun in the role, and his chemistry with Ncuti Gatwa is palpable. There's a charge in every scene they share, and it's a joy to watch. The Doctor is in full flirt mode, critiquing Rogue's ship, listening to Kylie Minogue through his sound system, and working out his name comes from Dungeons & Dragons. Even when Rogue is preparing to incinerate him, the Doctor feels like he's in charge, tossing his psychic paper against some controls to prove he's not a Chuldur, with images of all the previous Doctors, including the Fugitive Doctor and... is that Richard E. Grant? Did the show just canonize the Shalka Doctor? Outstanding. Rogue and the Doctor feel like equals in a way we've rarely seen on the series -- the closest equivalent might be River Song, which feels appropriate.

And while the Doctor and Rogue are showing off to each other -- complete with each asking the other to travel with him -- Ruby is enjoying the dance and eavesdropping on a couple having a quiet but anguished debate: "I will not marry you," Lord Barton says to Miss Emily Beckett. "Not now. Not ever." "Then go," Emily replies. "You stole my heart, now leave me my reputation." And even when Ruby accidentally interrupts, causing Lord Barton to leave, the basic scenario continues. "Oh, this is so Bridgerton," Ruby exhales. Of course, we know that Lord Barton is one of the Chuldur, along with the Duchess (played by Indira Varma, who you might remember as Suzie from Torchwood), so there's an undercurrent of danger that Ruby is unaware of.

But even with this danger, and the fact that we've seen multiple people killed by the Chuldur, the overwhelming sense throughout "Rogue" is one of fun. Despite the joy that the fifteenth Doctor exudes, this has generally been a pretty solemn season, with racism, war, and ghost stories on display. So this is a welcome contrast, a rollicking adventure that acts as a release of tension. It's good to have a more typical Doctor Who tale, and it gives Gatwa the opportunity to blossom. His storyline with Rogue soon takes center stage, with a glorious little moment as the Doctor decides to set a trap. "We need to get the Duchess outside, on her own," he says, "and if there's one thing that attracts her, it's scandal. And outrage and plot twists. So, come on, Rogue. Shall we?" "I don't see how us dancing will create a scene," says Rogue, bemused. "Then you should have researched this era a little more," the Doctor replies happily, "because we are scandalous." This leads to the Doctor and Rogue dancing together, causing some ripples, presumably due to two men dancing together -- especially when they move into a tango. Then they up the ante with the Doctor claiming offense, and Rogue, apparently not comfortable with improved dialogue, wordlessly moving to his knee in a sign of a proposal, causing the Doctor, who seems genuinely caught off-guard, to leave the room. It's such a well-done scene, beautifully shot and acted, and both Gatwa and Groff do a great job of making us uncertain just how much they mean it.

"Find me." ("Rogue") ©BBC

There's so much joy in the Doctor, in fact, that it's a bit of a shock to see just how vengeful he is when he thinks the Chuldur have killed Ruby and taken her form. "How long do they live for?" the Doctor asks Rogue about the Chuldur. "They have a lifespan of 600 years," Rogue replied. "Good," the Doctor says darkly. "Good. That's a long time to suffer." But maybe that shouldn't be surprising; the fifteenth Doctor seems to be the most emotionally open of any of the Doctors we've seen, from the way he hugged the fourteenth Doctor in "The Giggle" to the rage he screamed out in "Dot and Bubble" to the many, many times we've seen this Doctor moved to tears. This is a Doctor who feels things deeply, who's furious at the Chuldur for (he thinks) killing Ruby -- watch the incredibly sarcastic way he sets the triform trap around the Chuldur before telling them, "for the desecration of Ruby Sunday, you deserve only this" -- and who, when he learns Ruby isn't dead but is trapped, cannot bring himself to lose Ruby again, even though it puts the Earth in tremendous danger. And so Rogue does it for him, distracting the Doctor with a (really nice) kiss and grabbing the controller away before replacing Ruby with himself. "Find me," he tells the Doctor as he presses the button, exiling both the Chuldur and himself to some unknown place and dimension. Except the Doctor doesn't even know how to start looking for him, which makes it a sad ending. The only thing the Doctor has is the ring Rogue gave him when he proposed. (And what do you want to bet that will be significant if they do decide to bring Rogue back?)

So yes, a rather sad ending, but overall the mood of "Rogue" is one of fun. It's a blast to watch the Doctor and Ruby in Regency-era dress, navigating through a fancy dance while dealing with shape-shifting bird aliens -- and meanwhile the chemistry between the Doctor and Rogue is so electric, you could happily watch them banter with each other forever. It's a bit unusual, even now, over 60 years after the show debuted, to give the Doctor a romantic arc, but in this case it works really well. "Rogue", quite simply, is a delight.

October 3: "Dot and Bubble"

It opens on a young white woman waking up and more or less immediately activating a floating device called a Dot, enclosing her in a Bubble (hence the episode title). And so from the minute she wakes up she's talking to friends, watching someone sing and dance, and gossiping about outfits and such. She can't even use the bathroom unless something shows up (the bluntly named "Dr. Pee") to let her know if she needs to or not. In other words, it's the smartphone/social media episode.

It begins as a fun bubbly episode, with the generally vapid conversations belying the fact that something darker is going on in Finetime. It starts small, with some people offline who normally wouldn't be, but the main character of this episode, Lindy Pepper-Bean, doesn't seem to believe that there's a problem. She is completely dependent on her Dot and Bubble, choosing to spend her entire time inside it instead of looking at anything beyond. And so when the Doctor messages her inside her Bubble, she blocks him, since he's an unsolicited request. But when Ruby breaks in, posing as a systems check and asking her questions about the people around her, Lindy finally starts to realize that there's danger -- especially when she sees her coworker being eaten by a giant slug-like creature (called a Mantrap behind-the-scenes, according to the accompanying documentary series Doctor Who Unleashed).

Lindy and company watch Gothic Paul get eaten by a Mantrap. ("Dot
and Bubble") ©BBC

This means we get to see just how dependent on their Dots these people are, with Lindy being completely incapable of even walking unless she has an app telling her where to go. Not only does she keep bumping into tables, but when a Mantrap appears in the lift she can't even walk away from it, and it's only because she wasn't on the menu yet that she's saved. It's not terribly subtle, to be honest, but it's still reasonably entertaining, watching as Lindy gets incensed that the Doctor keeps bursting in into her Bubble and then is completely at a loss when her Dot runs out of battery. And it may be incredibly dumb, but watching Lindy walk straight into a pole -- twice -- is still funny. (It doesn't hurt that she's one of these people who refuse to believe the evidence in front of them, trying to retreat into their bubble (literally, in this case) to avoid dealing with any unpleasantness, meaning there's a certain satisfaction when she does walk into that pole.) She's honestly pretty helpless, thanks to her dependency, so it's a good thing Ricky September is there to help her.

Ricky in some ways is presented as the opposite of Lindy. Although he's a major popstar among all the rich kids in Finetime (it's only for people aged 17-27 who can afford to go), he spends most of his day without his Dot, choosing to read or explore. This curiosity about the world he's living in sets him apart from everyone else, not needing to be glued to his Bubble to enjoy life, and you can't help but notice the message regarding smartphone use. (There's also a part of me that wonders, looking at how attractive everyone in Finetime is made up to be, if there's also a critique about the kinds of actors cast in ostensibly dystopian environments in movies and television being raised here, given how put together everyone looks -- particularly Ricky, with a calculatedly messy hairstyle.) Ricky is shown to be brave, smart, and kind, so it's perhaps inevitable that he would end up dead thanks to Lindy's selfishness -- there's no place for someone like Ricky in this world. In fact, we learn that the whole place is like Lindy, shallow and self-centered, and that the Dots have apparently created the Mantraps to eliminate the population because they've become fed up with the lot of them. As a commentary on smartphone use and the way social media frequently encourages shallowness, it's perhaps a bit on-the-nose, but there are worse sins to commit.

Except.

It turns out that in many ways the broad commentary on smartphones and social media has been disguising something much more subtle going on. The last scene is a masterful reveal that makes you question everything about yourself as it reveals the real point of the episode: Finetime is populated by racists, who would rather risk their lives in an unknown wilderness that they are woefully unprepared for rather than accept help from a Black person. Some people had a very strong negative reaction to this at the time, possibly because for many of them it felt like it came out of nowhere, a twist ending that wasn't justified. And yet this is where the genius of this episode lies, because in retrospect all the signs are there: the way everyone in Finetime is white; the behaviour of Lindy toward the Doctor in a way that isn't how she treats Ruby; Lindy's comment to her friend group that "I know this is wrong, and when this is over, he is going to be so disciplined. I can't wait. But...just give him a shot, okay?" followed up with "I think he's not as stupid as he looks"; her disgust at the Doctor and Ruby being in the same room; and, perhaps most damningly, when she comments, "Didn't I block you? I knew it, I did. I thought that you just looked the same" (emphasis mine). This is lurking in the background of the entire episode, daring you to notice, not a twist so much as it is just a reveal. I think it's worth quoting Russell T Davies in full, from the aforementioned episode of Doctor Who Unleashed, because it really gets to the heart of this:

It'll be interesting to see the response to this episode. I think the main response to this episode is going to be about that ending. What we can't tell is how many people will have worked that out before the ending, because they've seen white person after white person after white person, and television these days is very diverse. I wonder, will you be 10 minutes into it, will you be 15, will you be 20 before you start to think everyone in this community is white. And if you don't think that, why didn't you? So that's going to be interesting. I hope it's one of those pieces of television you'll see and always remember. From the moment we cast Ncuti, everyone said to me, "Oh my God, what's it going to be like when he goes into the past?" Because a Black Doctor is going to face such racism. You sit there going, what about now? Why do you think racism is only in the past, when you look at what's happening to the world?

For myself, I did notice a number of those things, such as that everyone is white, but I explained it away for other reasons: the Doctor and Ruby aren't from Finetime and that's why they're being brushed off, Lindy's just upset, breaking into someone's Bubble is extremely taboo, that sort of thing. I have to be honest and say that racism didn't occur to me as an explanation. But clearly it should have, and maybe that says something about me and about society and how all-too-often we condemn overt racism but excuse more subtle forms as being about something else.

So if the episode had ultimately been just about social media, etc., that would be fine but perhaps not the most exciting thing in the world. But it's the ending that really elevates this episode, where the survivors get to be explicitly racist, with comments such as "You, sir, are not one of us. I mean, you were kind, although it was your duty to save me, obviously" and "If you'll turn away, ladies, before you're contaminated". And the incredible, most Doctorish thing is that the Doctor decides he doesn't care: "I don't care what you think. And you can say whatever you want. You can think absolutely anything. I will do anything if you just allow me to save your lives." But obviously, they don't trust him and think he's inferior, so he walks away, leading to an absolutely astonishing performance from Ncuti Gatwa, where he starts to laugh, bending over, before screaming out his rage, spittle flying, because he doesn't want to believe people would behave like that. (It's even more impressive a moment when you learn that was basically Gatwa's first day on set.)

So "Dot and Bubble" is a decent story that is really elevated by its ending, making you question everything you've seen up to that point and why you reacted the way you did. That alone makes this episode worth watching and rewatching. The smartphone stuff is kind of fun, but the real trick is how Davies has been skilfully weaving the real theme throughout the whole episode, wondering when you'd notice. I wouldn't want the whole show to be like this, but I'm glad this episode exists. Well done all around.

(Oh right, Susan Twist. This time she's Lindy's mum, and it seems even the Doctor has started to notice that she keeps popping up...)

October 2: "73 Yards"

Only eight episodes this series and we still have a Doctor-lite episode? (Actually it's because Ncuti Gatwa is off finishing up his commitments on Sex Education, not because they're trying to run two production blocks simultaneously.)

It's been a bit surprising, this series; normally it felt like you got one or two "experimental" episodes that push the boundaries of what the show is like and can do, things like "Love & Monsters", "Midnight", "Heaven Sent", or "It Takes You Away". But so far it's felt like 3 of the last 4 episodes have been pushing those boundaries, with the craziness of "The Devil's Chord", the basically single small set of "Boom", and now the pure ghost story of "73 Yards". It even starts unusually, with no opening credits for the fourth time ever.

The beginning is seemingly innocent enough: for the second time in as many episodes, the Doctor steps somewhere he shouldn't, this time accidentally breaking a fairy circle on a clifftop in Wales (well, the episode calls it a fairy circle, but this seems to be something constructed by people with string and messages, rather like a spirit trap, instead of a ring caused by mushrooms). When Ruby bends down to read some of the messages, the Doctor apparently disappears, while in the distance a woman can be seen talking and gesturing. But Ruby can neither approach her nor get her to leave her alone: instead the woman is always 73 yards away from Ruby. And this set-up leads us into one of the stranger episodes of the entire series.

One benefit of the Doctor being gone is that the focus can now shift to Ruby, and Millie Gibson rises to the occasion. On her own, she has to try and get to civilisation and then live her life while this woman constantly keeps following her, and you can see in Gibson's performance how confusion gives rise to annoyance, then to terror, and finally acceptance. She has some wonderful moments throughout, such as her uneasiness in the pub, her anguish when her mother disowns her, or the way she apologises to Marti for not doing something sooner. She also does a good job of aging the attitude of the character; Ruby in her 40s is less lively than Ruby in her 20s, seeming a bit older and more careworn -- not just because of the hair and makeup but also just in the way Gibson carries herself. It's a really lovely performance that does a lot to deepen our understanding of Ruby and her character (even if it ultimately turns out none of this happened, at least in this way).

The script also does a good job of slowly building up the mystery, from a weird phenomenon of being followed to the first time Ruby asks someone to talk to the woman -- in this case, a hiker played by, you guessed it, Susan Twist. "I haven't met you before, have I?" asks Ruby, in the first acknowledgement of Twist's repeated appearances. "I don't think so," the hiker replies, confused. "Have you?" But in any case, when the hiker goes to talk to the woman she flees in terror. This is the start of the pattern, as a pub-goer flees, then Ruby's own mother, and even Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (in a nice cameo), despite her claims that UNIT have training against psychic, telepathic, mesmeric, and witchcraft forces. It serves to make Ruby increasingly isolated and powerless to stop this woman or get rid of her, something that the show reinforces by showing her distracted on dates and alone on her birthday over the next 20 years.

Amol Rajan interviews Roger ap Gwilliam. ("73 Yards") ©BBC

This time lapse, as we move from 2024 to 2046, moves the episode from creepy to something slightly different, as Ruby hears about a Welsh politician named Roger ap Gwilliam that the Doctor had mentioned right before he disappeared was a future Prime Minister who led the world to the brink of nuclear destruction. Ruby decides to inveigle her way onto Gwilliam's campaign team, so that she can be just close enough to him to use the woman against him. To be fair, Gwilliam does show that he's pretty terrible -- seeming to claim that he wants to fire a nuclear missile during an interview or whatever he's doing to Marti that causes her to declare that he's a monster -- so Ruby's actions aren't only based on an off-hand comment the Doctor made. But when it's officially announced that Gwilliam will be Prime Minister, Ruby makes her move just by walking out onto a football pitch so that she's exactly 73 yards away from Gwilliam, which means he can talk to the woman, leading him to flee in terror. Ruby has saved the world.

Except then the episode keeps going, and we see Ruby eventually turn into an old woman, who goes to visit the TARDIS one last time (now covered in moss) before somehow becoming the woman who's been keeping her distance, at which point she's transported back in time to the TARDIS's arrival in 2024 or so, where her presence distracts Ruby long enough to then distract the Doctor, so that he doesn't break the fairy circle. So, er, does that mean the future isn't saved then? It's only saved in that one divergent timeline that no longer exists? And how did Ruby become the old woman, and did she just stay the same age for the next 60 years?

There's a slight feeling of a shaggy dog story at the end of this, where we get led on this journey that ultimately doesn't matter. It's not even like Ruby remembers the events or anything. We also don't get any sort of explanation for why any of this is happening -- although, to be fair, that seems to be part of the point. Russell T Davies slyly lays his cards on the table at one point, as Kate remarks that "We see something inexplicable and invent the rules to make it work," but in this case he doesn't provide us with the rules; we're on our own as to come up with theories about why this is happening. The first time around, I found that very frustrating when combined with the ending: we don't know why any of this occurred and none of it mattered anyway, so what's the point? But this time around, knowing what kind of episode this is and where it's going, it was easier to see its virtues. This is a ghost story about a haunting at a distance, and the tone and the mood is the driving force behind all this, more than any explanations or rationales. In some ways airing at the end of May instead of like October does this episode a disservice. This is a story designed to exude a certain spooky atmosphere, and on that front "73 Yards" is a clear winner.

October 1: "Boom"

We've had six episodes in a row by Russell T Davies, but now it's time for a different writer to take over, and that writer is...Steven Moffat? Apparently everything old really is new again, as Moffat returns for the first time since 2017's "Twice Upon a Time".

"Boom" wears its primary inspiration on its sleeve, at least for fans versed in the 20th-century run: this is, at its heart, an expansion of the landmine sequence from Part One of Genesis of the Daleks (and Moffat has been forthright about that being where this stems from). Here we have the Doctor stopping a war and saving a planet while being transfixed to one spot, trying very, very hard to remain calm. It's a set-up that obviously lends itself naturally to lots of tension, and Moffat milks it for everything he's got.

Ruby prepares to hand the casket to the Doctor. ("Boom") ©BBC

If you're in a churlish mood, you can point out that it's almost formulaic, the way the story progresses: just as one problem is about to be solved a new one reares its head. So just as the issue about weight distribution is addressed, then the dumbest kid on the planet shows up; once she's dealt with, a soldier shows up; then an ambulance appears; and so on and so forth. However, to the credit of everyone involved, it's not something you really notice while you're watching. Ncuti Gatwa has already impressed as the Doctor before this point, but here he dials it up even further: listening to him sing "Skye Boat Song" to calm his nerves, or start to babble as he tries to distract himself from his situation, or the way his voice just drips with contempt as he says, "Thoughts and prayers"... it's a fabulous performance, made even more impressive by the fact that Gatwa needs to deliver it basically standing still. Millie Gibson perhaps doesn't get quite as much to do, but she still proves herself by being brave and willing to walk right up to the Doctor to hand over the casket (a euphemism for the compressed body of a soldier, looking like a cylinder) so that he has a better chance of properly shifting his weight so that the mine doesn't go off.

There's also the main Anglican marine, Mundy Flynn, who is initially hostile to the Doctor but then starts to come around as she realizes just how bad things would be if the Doctor activated the landmine. Flynn is played by Varada Sethu, who one month earlier had been announced as the Doctor's companion next series. We'll have to wait and see if this is a deliberate choice, like Jenna Coleman in "Asylum of the Daleks" and "The Snowmen", or more like Freema Agyeman in "Army of Ghosts", but for a number of fans it made them sit up and take notice, though on the face of it Sethu seems to be playing a different character. She does a good job of being both likeable and pigheaded, needing the Doctor and Ruby to talk her round but finally willing to trust the Doctor. Joe Anderson as John Francis Vater and Bhav Joshi as Canterbury both do what's required of them, while Susan Twist (no longer in a cameo role!) hits just that right level of cruel niceties as the ambulance AI, meaning that you really dislike it. Really the only weak link is Vater's daughter, Splice, and that has less to do with Caoilinn Springall's performance and more to do with the fact that she's simply too old: the script treats her like she's 4 or 5, while Springall is fairly clearly a few years older than that. This means that most of the time her character ends up looking like an idiot, rather than a young kid; the scenes where she doesn't understand what happened to her dad (on a battlefield, mind you) make you wonder if there's something wrong with her.

But this is a Steven Moffat script, which means a lot of his obsessions and in-jokes are present and correct. So it's set in the 51st century (that one's a bit subtle, but 2004 (Ruby's birth year) + 3082 = 5086, except it's 5 October so it's actually 5087), it features the Anglican Church as a military organization, the Doctor mentions fish fingers and custard, and he recites a poem about the moon and the President's wife that seems to be the same thing as something Missy mentioned during "The Magician's Apprentice". The most overt reference, though, is the weapons manufacturer Villengard, which the ninth Doctor implies he destroyed in "The Doctor Dances" and which the twelfth Doctor visits the ruins of in "Twice Upon a Time". Here Villengard seems to be in its prime, supplying weapons to the Anglicans and maintaining a casualty rate slightly above the acceptable number, so that the war continues and Villengard makes more money. This means if it's not profitable to heal someone the roving ambulances will kill them instead, so as not to waste resources on them. It may not be the most original critique of war profiteering ever, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't do it. And this way you get to see the Doctor defeat the warmongers, even if the actual method is literally a deus ex machina. Plus I like the way the enemy is handled, even if it is a bit too obvious that there's no enemy -- but the Doctor uses that as an opportunity for a critique:

DOCTOR: Ruby, stop that. Hang on in there. I still need you. I can't think unless I'm talking, and I can only talk to you. Mundy thinks that she's fighting the Kastarions, what do you think? You figured it out yet? I don't think Mundy's figured it out.
MUNDY: Figured what out?
DOCTOR: So this lot, Ruby, they came here, what, six months ago? They set up their defences and fired their warning shots into the air. "Watch out, we come in peace." Yeah?
MUNDY: We advertised our presence. It's standard procedure.
DOCTOR: Did you hear that, Ruby? They advertised their presence. And do you know what that does? Ruby, that activates the Villengard algorithm. The acceptable casualty rate algorithm. Keeps you dying, keeps you buying. Huh? Do you get it? Huh? Do you get it? ... There's nobody else here. You declared war on an empty planet. There are no Kastarions in the mud, they're not in the fog. There are no Kastarions. Just the algorithm maintaining an acceptable casualty rate in the face of nothing at all. You are fighting your own hardware and it's killing you at just the right amount to keep you buying more. I mean, most armies would notice that they were fighting smoke and shadows, but not this lot, Ruby. You know why? 'Cos they have faith. ... The magic word that keeps you never having to think for yourself. Just surrender, Mundy. Just stop, and it's all over.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - Boom)

It's perhaps Moffat's most anti-religion script, the way it dismisses faith and religion, although he does give a little bit of grace at the end: "Just because I don't like [faith] doesn't mean I don't need it, Mundy," the Doctor says. That may not be to all tastes, of course, but it's more an aside than the main thrust of the episode, so it doesn't really ruin things if you disagree with him.

And the thing is, this really is a well-done story. It's not perfect, of course, and some things may grate, depending on your general opinion of Steven Moffat, as this is a pretty Moffat-esque script. But even with that, the production is so well done that any qualms about the storyline disappear like the fog being sucked up by the vacuum drones. "Boom" is an excellent story that shows just how much you can do with basically a single set and a handful of characters. This is one of the standout episodes of series 14.

September 30: "The Devil's Chord"

Now this is a bit of trivia for you: not counting Resurrection of the Daleks (which doesn't really count anyway since it was broadcast as one episode per day), this is the first time two full-length episodes of Doctor Who have debuted on the same day, as "The Devil's Chord" went out immediately after "Space Babies" (perhaps they were worried no one would come back if that was the last thing they'd seen for a week).

This is certainly a stronger episode than "Space Babies" was, but more than that, you can see why they aired it back-to-back with the previous one: in tandem, these two episodes do a really good job of showing off what Doctor Who can do. If "Space Babies" was about the future and space and monsters, this is about the past and visiting celebrities and human-seeming villains; as a contrast, it works really well. But while I can see why they aired it second, part of me wonders if it might not have been better a little later in the series.

On the surface that's a bit surprising, because, while there were some hints of oddness in that opening scene, in general this starts like a fairly typical celebrity historical. We meet some people who sound like and slightly resemble the Beatles, someone else who looks more like Cilla Black (although she wouldn't be signed by Brian Epstein until September 1963, but never mind), and a general puzzle regarding what's wrong with music. It's not until Maestro, the main villain, makes their presence known to the Doctor that things go sideways, as they start to distort the story around them. And honestly, that's not really a bad thing! Some of the best stories have a sudden shift that changes what you thought was happening. So what's off about this one?

Part of the issue may be the more experimental (for lack of a better word) nature of Maestro. Played to the hilt by Jinkx Monsoon, Maestro is a gloriously scene-chewing villain, clearly relishing every moment. Maestro is explicitly named as one of the Toymaker's children (from "The Giggle", if you'd forgotten), and in fact the giggle itself heralds their presence to the Doctor. If the Toymaker was all about games, then Maestro is about music. But where the Toymaker wanted to play games, Maestro just wants to consume music, trying to make it so that there's nothing left but the Aeolian tones of the universe, devouring even the music of the spheres. "That lament will be my symphony supreme," Maestro proclaims. So we get a villain who seems incredibly powerful and wonderfully camp, having a ball while they destroy everything. But we've had that kind of thing before, so what's different here?

Is it too weird? This is a story, after all, that features CG musical staves grabbing people and dragging them around. (Which also leads to a wonderful, slightly bizarre joke about the Doctor commenting that he thought the music that grabs Ruby was non-diagetic (in other words, not heard by the characters). Does that mean he hears Murray Gold or Dudley Simpson or Paddy Kingsland as he travels through time and space?) The sight of the music flying around is reminiscent of the music battle from 2022's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, so there's also an element of magic involved -- we're rather a long way away from the Doctor's "there's no such thing as magic" position of The Dæmons. It also seems to hinge on the idea that no one before Timothy Drake (the instructor at the top of the episode) had played that particular tritone before, which seems unlikely. So it relies on coincidence and it's borderline magic. It also feels an awful lot like the confrontation with the Toymaker in "The Giggle", when he pulled the Doctor and Donna into a theater -- only this time it's a stage in the ruined Earth of Ruby's time if Maestro isn't stopped, Pyramids of Mars-style. Coincidence, magic, and familiarity then.

But that's the thing. None of that should really matter, and viewed in isolation, it works really well. No, the main issue is that this episode feels out of place. The Doctor and Ruby seem too familiar with each other, as if they've been travelling together for some time now, and Ruby mentions at one point that she thinks it might be June for her now, which would suggest this was initially intended to be later in the season. But this issue really manifests itself in the Doctor's reaction to Maestro. He seems completely terrified by them, to the point where he runs away and hides. And at this point, we just don't know the fifteenth Doctor well enough to know just how atypical this is. (His description of the events of "The Giggle" also seem to imply a much more fearful encounter from the Doctor's perspective than what it looked like in that episode. Maybe Maestro is also making a noise at 17 Hz to scare the Doctor, like the Bogeyman in "Space Babies".) Is Maestro really that scary, or is the fifteenth Doctor a bit of a coward? It doesn't seem likely, but the point is that we don't know for sure yet: we haven't seen Fifteen in action enough.

So by no means is it a bad episode, and the performances from the main cast are once again excellent, with Gatwa and Gibson clearly both having a blast. It's got a weird ending, sure, as if they wanted a dance number but couldn't figure out how to put it into the episode proper, so they just tacked it on to the end, but that's not the worst thing ever. But it's got great energy, an interesting premise, and a sense of the show stretching itself, to demonstrate it can do more than slightly silly space stories. If it had aired later in the season (maybe around episode 5), with a better established relationship with Ruby and more familiarity with this Doctor, I don't think I would have as many reservations. I can see why they moved it up to episode 2; I just kind of wish they hadn't.

(There's always a (Susan) Twist: in this case she's the tea lady charging half a crown for two cups of tea.)

September 29: "Space Babies"

We've had a Christmas special, but now it's time, nearly 5 months later, for the regular season to begin. And like the previous season, series 14 also consists of 8 episodes plus a special. Series 13 was that way due to COVID; series 14 is that way because... the previous series was? It's not really clear why.

But in any event this is basically the start of the new series. So, Russell T Davies appears to have decided, this would be a good time to reintroduce the basic premise and rules of the show. (Maybe Disney also requested this?) But the result is rather clunky: we get a bunch of exposition about who the Doctor is and how the show works (right down to explaining what TARDIS stands for), along with a slightly odd sequence where Ruby steps on a butterfly and turns into a lizard person (though not a Silurian) until the Doctor somehow resurrects the butterfly. The sequence manages to be both clunky and really bizarre -- they did a much better job with Bill in "Thin Ice".

But then this whole episode is rather bizarre. On an intellectual level I can appreciate the chutzpah in making the main characters a bunch of talking babies running a spaceship; I'm just not convinced they pull it off. Part of the issue is that babies aren't actors, so they can't deliver performances. The baby playing Eric, for instance, perpetually looks incredibly unhappy, even when he's meant to be happy. They try, of course, with the voice actors and the CG lip sync, but it never quite works. It doesn't help that we never really get the sense, after an initial "checking readings" bit, that these babies (who are also 6 years old? That also never quite makes sense) are really running things. But then maybe it's just an illusion to give the babies something to do, I suppose. Certainly it seems like Jocelyn is the one actually trying to run the station, posing as the computer NAN-E so that she doesn't "see them die. And I don't want them to see me die." Making the computer actually just one overworked person is a clever idea, and it leads to some entertaining moments -- if they'd run with that a bit more, it might have been more interesting. Unfortunately, however, they instead spend a bunch of time dealing with the monster of the week, which is, let's face it, a snot monster. This has the real feel of Davies noticing the similarities between Bogeyman and the slang word "bogey" and deciding to build a monster around it. In that regard it's very reminscient of the eye-booger monsters from "Sleep No More" and is about as believable.

So once again this means it's up to Gatwa and Gibson to carry the episode. To his credit, Gatwa is so exuberant as the Doctor, marveling at everything, that he is in fact able to do a lot of the work of making this entertaining. Watching him coo over "space babies" or wonder why he's frightened of the Bogeyman is a joy. There's also the throwaway comment suggesting the Star Trek universe is real (unless he's suggesting visiting the soundstage or something), which is wonderfully cheeky. Meanwhile, Millie Gibson is doing a good job of being both the audience identification and showing why the Doctor chose her, being both brave and smart, such as when she works out the actual computer has designed the station to basically be a children's story. The word for her is plucky, and she fulfills the role admirably, being clever without being annoying. That said, there's a weird moment where the Doctor is asking if there was a note left when Ruby was dropped off at the church, and it starts snowing. It's not at all clear why, but this at least seems to be an ongoing mystery through the whole series, given the final scene. But even so, it's a strange little moment.

The ending is also a bit strange. I get Jocelyn wanting to get rid of the Bogeyman, and I understand why the Doctor wants to save it. I don't really get why the babies are so upset that the thing that's been terrorizing them is being destroyed. Even a line or two might have helped explain this, but as is it's because the babies are just good? Or something? And then the whole thing ends with basically a fart joke, as there's been a build-up of methane that the Doctor expels to propel the station to a refugee planet. If they'd leaned into that it might have been audacious enough to be worth it, but the way it's presented it's just another weird moment in an episode filled with weird moments.

Because that's the thing with this episode. It's competently made and the performances from the adult actors are enjoyable, but it never really coheres into anything. There's a veiled comment about abortion ("So the planet down below refused to stop the babies being born, but once they're born, they don't look after them?" Ruby asks. "It's a very strange planet," Jocelyn replies. "It's not that strange," Ruby says), but just like the rest of it, it's a moment that never snowballs. The problem with "Space Babies" is that there's almost nothing to engage with. It's a silly premise that they don't push nearly far enough in any given direction, either with the babies in charge or any sort of social commentary or anything at all, really. As with the last episode, this is an episode that, if it succeeds at all, is due to performances -- but "Space Babies" doesn't even have the fantasy vibe to fall back on. I appreciate the absurdity of the main conceit; I just wish they'd done more with it.

(This week's Susan Twist appearance: Comms officer Gina Scalzi, signing off duty on the Babystation.)

September 28: "The Church on Ruby Road"

After three episodes of celebrating the series, it's now time to look forward with a new Doctor. Same logo and titles though, which is perhaps slightly surprising, since I'd sort of figured that was just for the 60th. But I suppose if you've spent all that time and money branding things with the new logo, you don't want to immediately get rid of it.

But here we are at the start of series 14 -- and it is series 14, no matter what Disney or anyone else says. I get it's not sexy to start your new show at 14 (and runs the risk of people asking where 1-13 are), but trying to pretend this is "season one" is disingenuous. It gets even slightly dafter when you consider that the first three episodes Disney put on their streaming service were the 60th anniversary specials, so they've already admitted there's a whole bunch of the show that's not on their streaming service. (Not that you'd know it through their interface; when you click on "Doctor Who" the fourteenth Doctor is nowhere to be found -- those are apparently "Doctor Who Special 1-3" and something completely different.) And besides, we've already had a season one and it starred William Hartnell.

Sorry, where was I? Ah, that's right.

It's the start of series 14 and, more importantly, for the first time since 2017, Doctor Who is back on Christmas Day (instead of the New Year's Day experiment Chibnall tried). This means that once again we get a festive opening, with Christmas trees and decorations and such. But unlike some other Christmas episodes, this time the focus is not so much on Christmas as it is on our incoming companion: Ruby Sunday (which, let's be honest, isn't a great name since it sounds like an off-brand Rolling Stones song). And so we (and the Doctor) follow Ruby around a bit, seeing that she seems to be a magnet for bad luck for some reason. This, by the way, lets us see the fifteenth Doctor in a white tank top and kilt, dancing in a club -- something it's a bit difficult to imagine many, if any, of the other Doctors doing, yet Gatwa makes it seem completely natural. But yes, we learn that Ruby is a musician (complete with another Susan Twist appearance), a foundling who was adopted by a loving foster mother, and unlucky. It's those last two qualities that the episode is going to mainly focus on, with the last one, it seems, related to the second: there are goblins stalking Ruby, making her life seem unlucky, so that the coincidence of a baby arriving to be fostered on the same day of the year as Ruby was found will make the baby more appetizing to the goblins who are going to eat the baby. Or something. To be honest, it's a bit difficult to follow the rationale here. I get that the goblins like coincidence, but I'm not sure how bad luck plays into it. Does it make people more memorable or something and thus more prone to coincidence? Are coincidences and bad luck related somehow? It's never really clear.

But then in some ways it doesn't matter. There's almost a dream logic at work here, with goblins operating a flying cloud ship that's held together and powered by knots and who come down and kidnap babies to eat. Oh, and who can "bimble" through time. We get some handwavy stuff about a science based on luck which is a different form of physics, but even that feels token at best, a way to say, "don't worry about it, just enjoy the episode". This is one of the most overt dalliances with out-and-out fantasy that the show's ever had; whether you like that or not may come down to personal preference.

In terms of the story, the most successful part is the moment where the goblins go back in time and take baby Ruby away from the church she was left at back in 2004, because we get a glimpse into the life of Ruby's mother Carla if she'd never fostered and then adopted Ruby. It's a much colder and less cheery life, and Michelle Greenidge, playing Carla, does an excellent job of showing us the subtle differences, seeming much more tired and worn-down in the Ruby-less timeline. It's a nice way of showing how someone can make a difference in others' lives, without being too flashy or twee. That's where the real meat of the episode is, not in singing goblins and flying ships. Not that those bits aren't entertaining, mind, and there's something wonderfully audacious not just having a jolly pop song about eating babies but then having Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson join in to sing their own verses. It's just that those bits don't resonate in the same way as the parts with Carla, or the Doctor admitting he recently learned he was adopted.

Oh! But we haven't properly discussed Ncuti Gatwa or Mille Gibson yet! It's perhaps not much of a surprise, given his performance in "The Giggle", but nevertheless Gatwa completely owns every scene he's in. His Doctor is confident and fun-loving, and there's no hint of uncertainty in Gatwa's performance. The exuberance on display is infectious, and you want to see more of him, both marveling at the universe and in the quieter moments, such as the aforementioned "adoption" scene or his interactions with Ruby-less Carla. He simply is the Doctor. Against that Millie Gibson does a good job of holding her own. There was a slight worry, in the publicity leading up to this episode, that Ruby was going to be another version of Rose Tyler, but she manages to sidestep that for the most part. She's engaging to watch, letting Ruby's kindness come through along with her pluck, and it doesn't feel like Ruby's just another Rose.

So like I said, appreciation of this story likely depends on just how much pure fantasy you want in Doctor Who. I'm personally a bit ambivalent about it, but fortunately the performances of the cast carry the show, so that even if you do wonder just what's up with those goblins, you don't find yourself completely bored or disconnected from the story. This story succeeds on the shoulders of Gatwa, Gibson, Greenidge, and the rest of the cast, much more so than the script itself. And sometimes that's enough.

(Oh, and what's the deal with Mrs. Flood? How does she know what a TARDIS is?)