Doctor Who: Tin Dog Podcast: TDP 1365: TV #DoctorWho The Story and The Engine #DisneyWho Review
Synopsis When and land in for another reading, the Doctor goes to a to meet an old . There, he discovers a mysterious trapping the patrons, feeding with their stories. Plot sits in a chair, getting a haircut, and tells a story about the , his village saved by the mysterious man in the blue box. As he speaks, images splay out on the wall behind him, depicting his story to the men listening eagerly. As he finishes, they all look at a pair of lights on the wall in tense anticipation, relaxing when they switch from red to green. Omo tells the others not to worry, the Doctor always comes, and the light switches back to red, alarms blare, and the room shakes. insists that the take her home, and he suggests that they head to , , the communications hub of , and a place he loves - home of his favorite barbershop. Belinda expresses confusion at this - the can do his hair; but he explains that it's about community, about being himself, since it's the first time he's ever been a black man. Belinda understands and sends him off to enjoy himself in Lagos after he takes a reading. The Doctor winds his way through a market, greeting everyone as he passes, before he comes to his friend Omo's barbershop, , finding those assembled in the middle of a story. As the door closes behind him an alarm goes off in the TARDIS, alerting Belinda that something has gone wrong. The Doctor notices that everyone present is on missing posters outside, and he watches as the man's hair grows back. The light in the barbershop flashes to red, people scramble to decide who still has a story left, and someone sits down, telling the story of and a , of music and of time. As images flicker on the wall, the Doctor looks on in wonder, and asks how it works, begins testing by throwing out words from his travels. But it has to be a story, it has to be with a haircut. A new has taken over the shop, he came one day, and as if by magic the shop became his. A woman enters the barbershop, , bringing food, the door closes behind her, and an alarm in the TARDIS sounds again. The Doctor recognizes her, but can't place her. The light switches to red again, and the Doctor sits down, telling the most powerful story he knows, not of or , but of an ordinary life. Of Belinda Chandra doing her job, helping someone all night long, even on her grandmother's birthday, a simple gesture of thanks two weeks later. Abby watches a screen in another room, seeing it lighting up, noting that they're accelerating, as the story ends. The Barber is impressed with the power of his stories, and tells Abby when she comes out that they need to recalibrate . Omo asks if they can be let free now that the Doctor has come, his stories being effective, his hair having grown in the interim more than any of theirs. But Abby locks the door and the pair leave. The TARDIS sounds an alarm yet again, this time showing Belinda an image of the barbershop. The Doctor is furious that Omo betrayed him, is willing to trap him here, and refuses to listen as everyone tries to tell him not to open the door. He forces it open with his sonic screwdriver, finding a vacuum on the other side. A vacuum with only giant web and a large spider traversing it, the barbershop on the back of the spider. The Doctor closes the door with great effort, and the Barber emerges from the backroom, explaining that the shop is in Lagos and in outer space at the same time, only Abby and himself able to travel between. Outside, Belinda finds herself lost, but is pointed towards the shop by a , entering it, glad to see the Doctor. Reunited, the pair confront the Barber, calling him a coward who hides his face, having no real power. Rising to the taunt, the Barber names himself, calling himself , , , , , the god of stories. The pair burst out laughing - the Doctor has met Bastet, Sága, Dionysus, Anansi. He's partied with them, Anansi even tricked him to marry his daughter. This man isn't any of them. And so the man admits, he's the person who did their work for them. Wherever the gods went, he took their stories, cleaned them up, refined them, wrote them down, all for humans to repeat them, to keep the gods alive. Without him the gods would not exist. The web outside is his creation as well, the , a web that connects cultures and ideas. He was so successful that the gods abandoned him, and now he wants vengeance. The engine winds down, so much power drained from the Doctor opening the door. Abby criticizes him, and the Doctor recognizes her at last - Anansi's daughter, Abena. He's sorry that he was unable to help her, but he was a at the time, and had his own story. The light turns red, and the Barber insists the Doctor tell a story. The Doctor refuses, demanding to know what vengeance is being planned. The Barber relents - he plans to cut out the gods from memory when he reaches the center of the nexus, erasing them from existence. The Doctor is horrified, this will damage humanity, as it will harm their ability to tell stories, to pass down information, insisting that this is horrific. He refuses to sit down and speak, he won't let the spider go further. As the shop descends into chaos, everyone arguing, Abena proclaims that she will tell a story, and begins to braid the Doctor's hair. And she tells a story of plantation slaves transmitting information through the braids on their hair, maps to freedom for anyone who could escape, hidden in a place where the overseers would never check. As the battery stabilizes, the Doctor and Belinda run into the back room, finding themselves in a maze, a maze for which the Doctor has the map on his head. The pair come to a room full of artifacts from various cultures and the ship's engine, an engine that runs on stories, a heart inside a brain. The Barber enters the room behind them, having cut Abena off from the outside, the Doctor disrupting the flow of power, slowing the spider down but not stopping it. The Barber insists that the Doctor has done nothing. So the Doctor suggests that they consider , who wrote a story in six words. The Doctor's six word story is "I'm born. I die. I'm born." And energy begins to flow into the engine, never-ending energy, as his past lives flicker across the screens. But the Doctor has disrupted the engine, it can't process the power. He tells the Barber that now it's his choice - he can save the people in the shop by opening the door. But the engine will disintegrate. The Barber unlocks the door and Omo, Adena and the rest out front escape. The Doctor sends Belinda back as he sits with the Barber, talking to him, convincing him that he still has more to live for. The pair escape the shop at the last moment as it collapses, the engine exploding, destroying the spider it rode on. Omo apologizes to the Doctor, and says that he should have protected the Doctor, they're part of the same community. The two make up. Omo gives the Barber his shop, saying that he's retiring, and gives him a name, his father's name, . Adétòkunbo steps back into the barbershop, now his. The Doctor and Belinda step back into the TARDIS, one step closer to home. Cast - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Crew , and with and by • by Music by • Assistant to - • performed by General production staff for the - - - - - - - - - - - - - , - , - Script department - - Camera and lighting department - , - - - , - - - - - - - - - - , , , Art department - , - , - - - - - - - - - - - - , - - , , , , , , - - - - - - - - - - , - - , , - , - , , , , , , , , , , , Costume department - - Make-up and prosthetics Movement - - - Casting - - General post-production staff - - - - - Special and visual effects - - - - - , - Sound - - - - Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources. Worldbuilding claims to be , , , , and . In return, the Doctor relates encounters he had with all of those deities: winning a bet against Anansi, having a drinking contest with Dionysus that caused a in , watching movies with Sága, and losing a game of to Bastet. The has a large collection of artefacts related to stories. The room of shelves includes a , several , a statue of , a life-sized statue of a bearded man, , a helmet, copies of , , and , and a statue of a . The area around the heart has a statue of a dancing goddess, a , a , a statue of an , a model , several , , and a . Notes The episode has a smooth transition from the "" into the , with the title sequence first appearing in the shop window, and then the camera slowly zooming closer until the image fills the frame and the window fades away. The title of the episode was revealed on official social media on . On , the prequel short story , also written by , was published on the . Some of the artwork from it was shown on the shop window in this episode when was telling his story of the Doctor. The story shares many themes and ideas with other work by Ellams. The 2017 play Barber Shop Chronicles prominently explored as places of friendship and culture. It featured many barber shops, including one in . A version of the story about and the was part of this play. The 2019 play The Half-God of Rainfall depicted a world in which the gods of all religions coexist as separate figures who interact and fight with each other. appeared, presented as the of stories. Ellams viewed the character as echoing the title character of this play, as both are newly-invented children of gods. The 2020 poetry book The Actual had a poem about the Yo-Yo Ma story, as well as a poem comparing rapping to time travel which mentions Doctor Who. The Yo-Yo Ma anecdote is based on the musician's trip to which was filmed for the 1993 documentary Distant Echoes: Yo-Yo Ma & the Kalahari Bushmen. For the UK debut on , the episode was first released as an audio description version only. The standard version of the episode was then released a few minutes later. Episode writer appears as a , marking the second time a person has written and acted in the same episode, following in [+]. as and as the were omitted from the advance credits. The anecdote of challenging him to write a story in six words appears to be referencing 'For sale: baby shoes, never worn.', a story misattributed to Hemingway. Myths to be added Filming locations to be added Ratings to be added Production errors If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to . to be added The Doctor uses the , as he previously did in : [+], : [+], : [+] and : [+]. 's cameo, for the first time, occurs in a flashback rather than the present, in the story the Doctor recounts about how Belinda saved a life. She's seen walking down the hallway just before Belinda meets the patient again and is given flowers. The Doctor recognises Abby from his encounter with when he was the , indicating he now has access to some of the memories that were erased by . Belinda sees an apparition of just before she reaches the barber shop. When she later tells the Doctor about seeing a little girl, he guesses it was due to stories from the Story Engine leaking out. When the Doctor overcharges the engine with his endless story, it is shown with clips of the from : [+], the in : [+], the in : [+], the in : [+], the in : [+], the in : [+] with audio from : [+], audio of the from : [+], the in : [+], the in : [+], the in : [+], the in : [+], , , and the in : [+] (saying the line heard earlier), the in : [+] and the in : [+]. Clips of the in : [+], the in : "" [+], the Twelfth Doctor in : [+] and a still of the Fifteenth Doctor in : [+] appear in the background of the following scene. in article: External links Official page on Footnotes @BBC (2025-03-22). . YouTube. Archived from on 2025-03-22. (2025-05-08). . . Archived from on 2025-05-08. Amanda-Rae Prescott (2025-05-10). . Den of Geek. Archived from on 2025-05-11. . BBC One. Archived from on 2025-04-30.
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