Doctor Who Series 15 Recap Review Part 1
#RIPDoctorWho. I honestly never thought I’d be saying this at the beginning of a review, but here we are. The last time I unironically said this was in my review for The Giggle, but over the course of this series, I started to plan out the conclusion of this recap review and updated some of my older reviews with that hashtag so I can track how Doctor Who got to the state that it is today.
It’s been a year, or rather 11 months, since the last series. Let’s get into Season 2 of RTD2, better known to me as Series 15. Spoilers after the break.
2024 Christmas Special: Joy to the World
The Doctor crosses through various periods in the Time Hotel; he was originally looking for some milk but he tracked down a Silurian with a briefcase. The Silurian eventually arrives in the Sandringham Hotel on Christmas Eve 2024, inside a room where Joy Almondo is staying. The Doctor refuses to touch the briefcase but Joy does; the briefcase cuffs itself to her and releases the Silurian, who disintegrates. The Doctor opens the briefcase and discovers a star seed inside. The briefcase asks for a passcode and a second Doctor from the future comes in and gives it to him before taking Joy with him into the Time Hotel, telling the first Doctor that he will need to stay and complete the loop, the long way around.
With the Time Hotel’s next arrival being in New York on Christmas 2025, the Doctor has no choice but to stay at the Sandringham Hotel for the year, bonding with Anita who would be considered his companion because of this. Eventually, Christmas Eve approaches and the Doctor returns to the Time Hotel. The Doctor deduces that somebody is trying to “microwave a star” by leaving the star seed in one time zone so it can be retrieved thousands of years later. At the same time, he triggers Joy by reminding her of her mother, who died in hospital on Christmas Day during lockdown while politicians were partying at 10 Downing Street despite them making the restrictions that prohibited most public gatherings. The UK should be so lucky. Down in Melbourne, you couldn’t go down to the pub or to an outdoor playground, but you could line up for a takeaway coffee or go to a BLM rally. Only 5 people could visit your house but you could have an outdoor gathering of up to 20 people. And that’s not to mention the 5km travel limit, the curfew, the mandates; as authoritarian as those guidelines were “for our safety”, it was a gigantic and inconsistent clusterfuck.
Anyway, getting triggered causes the briefcase to release itself from Joy. The Doctor checks the briefcase again and discovers that it was made by Villengard, the weapons manufacturers who were the subject of the conflict in the last series’ episode Boom. Because human history on Earth only lasts a few thousand years, they would have needed to go 65 million years into the past. Sure enough, a dinosaur appears and swallows the briefcase.
The Doctor deduces that Villengard would need to retrieve the case again once the star seed matures and is about to detonate; sure enough, he gets a call from the star thanks to one of the hotel staff (Trev Simpkins) he met at the start whose consciousness ended up absorbed into the star and linked to the briefcase’s software. The Doctor is guided to the briefcase which is inside a stone pillar, but there is only four and a half minutes until detonation. He goes through multiple time zones to break it open, but when he gets back to the briefcase, the star seed is missing; Joy took it into herself and proceeds to rise, letting the star seed detonate itself in space.
The star is seen throughout Earth’s history, from Ruby in 2024 to Joy’s mum at hospital in 2020. Anita is offered a job at the Time Hotel thanks to the Doctor and the Doctor realises that he is in Bethlehem in the year 0001. Except there is a debate as to when exactly Jesus was born and the most popular theory is that he was born between 6 and 4 BC as the latter is apparently when King Herod died, but let’s not let historical accuracy get in the way of a heartwarming story.
This special was written by Steven Moffat, who also wrote Boom for Series 14, and I think it was better than that episode, discounting the usual SJW red flags. Frankly, Anita’s actress should also have been credited in the opening credits because 10 minutes of the special was dedicated to the Doctor spending a year with her instead of the actual companion, Joy.
Episode 1: The Robot Revolution
17 years ago, Belinda’s boyfriend Alan has a star named after her, giving her a framed certificate, or diploma (which isn’t what that is, by the way), that she would keep all this time before easing her into a kiss, because even in 2008 men have to be wary of women claiming that a kiss is sexual assault, even if they’re dating.
17 years later, Belinda Chandra is a nurse. The Doctor tries to get her address at her hospital, which he does somehow (while potentially killing a bunch of people by cutting off the power, our hero everybody) and goes to her share house just as she is kidnapped by some robots from the very star named after her which is actually a planet. On the way, Belinda complains “Go get Alan, he bought this thing!” as she goes through a time fracture. Remember this as it will be important later.
Belinda is brought to the planet Missbelindachandra One, where she is to be married to the Great AI Generator in a welding of metal and skin. The Doctor, who had followed Belinda, arrived six months before her and became the Historian after his TARDIS was impounded, covertly tells her that the robots are faulty and they cannot hear every ninth world. There are rebels fighting back against the robots and the Generator and they immediately turn on them, some of them (including Sasha 55) sacrificing themselves to get the Doctor and Belinda out.
They head to the Undercity where Belinda helps treat the wounded, but the people (the Missbelindachandrakind) have resentment towards her for being the reason so many of them died. The Doctor explains to Belinda that the border between this world and Earth keeps jumping about in time which is why the Doctor has been there for six months. The diploma the AI Generator had is the same one that Belinda has, that the robots took with her; the robots likely brought it back from the future, but it ended up 5000 years in the past.
Feeling some guilt over being the cause of this, Belinda reactivates a polishing robot the Doctor turned off, allowing the robots to track them to the Undercity. Belinda offers herself to them and the Doctor goes with her as they are brought to the Great AI Generator. As she approaches it, she notices it say something Alan had asked her 17 years ago - “Are you married?”
It is then that we learn that the Great AI Generator is actually… Alan Budd, Belinda’s boyfriend from 17 years ago that she thought moved away to Margate. So when Belinda said, “Go get Alan,” the robots actually went back through the time fracture and brought Alan back, ten years before the Doctor or Belinda arrived. Alan was incorporated into what would become the Great AI Generator, and he started the robot revolution by killing the first person that tried to ask him a question. The Doctor asks Belinda why she broke up with Alan, to which she reveals that it was because he was trying to coercively control her, something that he laid on her when he tried to propose. Yeah, coercive control doesn’t work like that. Usually all the “rules” would be laid out over time and not when they’re trying to propose, which you’d think would be when they’d shut up about their “rules” just so their target can say yes.
Also, by timey-wimey reasons, because Belinda was the reason why Alan became the Great AI Generator in the first place, the events of this episode were, in a way, her own fault. “But Azuma, Alan didn’t have to be creepy and name a star after his girlfriend in the first place!” Yeah, and Belinda didn’t need to call it “planet of the incels” when it was really just being run by one “incel”. And technically, Alan wouldn’t be an incel at all. RTD has no idea what incels are.
Belinda asks Alan how he could live with himself, to which the Doctor says that he can’t. His brain communicates with the machine on an eight-part loop, so the robots can’t hear every ninth word and Alan can communicate his truth at the same time; he wants to be saved from the pain. The Doctor passes Belinda’s diploma to her through the polishing robot and she touches it with the copy that Alan has, causing a time explosion. The Doctor manages to absorb it alongside Belinda and they survive, though Alan is nowhere to be found; the Doctor sees that he was regressed into a sperm and an egg, which is quickly cleaned away by the polishing robot. RTD turned someone into semen and period blood and I could never find an opportunity to use that plotline in a story. What’s next, a Kamen Rider W ripoff with Gaia Memories and humans being used as an analogy for sperm and eggs, and the resulting abominations being the equivalent of Dopants?
The world is freed from Alan’s control and the robots declare to live in harmony with the people. The TARDIS is returned to the Doctor and the Doctor tries to take Belinda back home because she has to go to work the next morning, but for some reason, they are bouncing off 24 May, the date they left, and it isn’t because of the time fracture because the Doctor closed it; as such, they will have to go the long way around. We then see that the Earth has apparently been destroyed, as we see a taxi, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, a pyramid and the star certificate/diploma floating in space.
This episode was meh, better than Space Babies for a series opener, but fuck, the wokeness came at me like a truck, especially that “planet of the incels” line. Was this an MSM-fed normie idea of an /r9k/ reference? I’m gonna have to give a “fuck you RTD” for this episode.
Episode 2: Lux
While trying to get Belinda home to 24 May, the Doctor lands in 1952 to use a Vortex Indicator (Vindicator) in order to cast a signal to that day. They find themselves in front of the Palazzo Picture House (Cinema) in Miami at 4 AM - the Vortex Indicator completes its job quickly, but the Doctor notices that the cinema has been chained up strongly. Um, I don’t know, maybe because it’s 4 AM and the cinema is closed? But seriously, he and Belinda decide to investigate and they learn that 3 months prior, 15 cinema-goers went missing one night.
The Doctor and Belinda head inside the cinema to see the old projectionist, Reginald Pye. Reginald tries to tell them to go away, but the movie stops and Mr Ring-a-Ding from the animated movie appears. The two try to find out who he is and Mr Ring-a-Ding tells them not to make him laugh, because his laugh is… The Giggle. Mr Ring-a-Ding is Lux Imperator, the god of light and one of the Gods of Chaos of the Pantheon of Discord. He came into existence through a beam of moonlight reflecting itself onto the film.
Suddenly, Reginald plays Mr Ring-a-Ding’s song and Lux is forced to perform it, allowing the Doctor and Belinda to escape. Reginald says that he has been showing Lux movies to keep him fed; he didn’t run away because Lux was able to recreate an apparition of his dead wife. The Doctor and Belinda find a film strip containing the 15 missing people trapped in it; Lux turned them into images.
Lux enters the room and seals the Doctor and Belinda onto film. They become animated characters and regain their dimension through expressing emotion and acquiring depth. They seemingly manage to escape the film only to be confronted by a policeman, but the Doctor sees that he is wearing the uniform of the NYPD, meaning they are still in the film.
The Doctor and Belinda manage to escape the screen, where they encounter three Doctor Who fans. One of them (the fat lady in the wheelchair) says that she knew it would happen because it was leaked online, namedropping the hashtag #RIPDoctorWho. I knew that RTD was poking fun of, or rather, mocking the fans with this when I first saw it, but for him to jam it in like this probably shows that he either doesn’t understand why #RIPDoctorWho was coined or he lets the haters live rent-free in his head after the 60th Anniversary (because the episodes in this series were produced while the last series was airing or due to air). Still, RTD can go fuck himself for that.
As the Doctor and Belinda talk to the three fans, they learn that their favourite episode is Blink and the token guy in the group gives the most basic summary of the episode. They also learn that the three are not real and that they will cease to exist once the Doctor and Belinda leave, because they are real (at least in the context of Doctor Who).
After leaving the three, the Doctor says that to get out of the film, they have to stop it; the celluloid in the film will burn from the heat of the projector and set the reel on fire. The Doctor and Belinda do so and are successful. The Doctor gets a burn on his hand and he uses a pocket of remaining bi-generation energy (like when Eleven healed River Song’s arm that time and oh my god, we’re calling it bi-generation energy now) to heal himself.
This is what Lux has been waiting for; he binds the Doctor up with film and shines the projector through him, transferring his bi-generation energy to him and creating a body for him. Following the plot of the episode as told by the three fans, Belinda rips out all the film in the reels and throws it to the ground. She then goes to borrow some matches from Reginald so she can set the film on fire, but he offers to do it himself.
The exploding film opens a hole in the theatre, exposing Lux to the light of the sun. Lux, who had become real, reverts to being animated as he begins continuously growing out of the Earth and into space, becoming the whole of creation itself. If humans are 60% water and they can still drown, giving Lux all the light in the universe makes him infinite, yet invisible. The 15 missing people are released; as the Doctor and Belinda leave, Mrs Flood mentions a good show on a limited run ending 24 May…
As the credits run, the three Doctor Who fans are revealed to be alive.
Gotta say, this episode was pretty amusing (and meta). They did implement the racism of the time in there (because they felt the need to tackle those issues), but unlike Series 11’s Rosa, it shows that not everyone has animosity towards people of colour, but that’s not the important thing in the episode. If I was to review this episode like I did before, I would have given it a -5/10. Yes, as good as this episode was, I’m docking points for RTD namedropping #RIPDoctorWho, because he knew what he was doing with that.
Episode 3: The Well
After failing to get back to Belinda’s home time, the Doctor lands 500,000 years in the future and goes to take another Vindicator reading, but they find themselves on a ship with a crew of troopers preparing to jump onto Planet 6-7-6-7, which is mining Carbon-46. The crew are investigating a colony base with 35 colonists which went silent over two weeks ago. Because of the galvanic radiation on the planet, the ship needs to land slowly, so the Doctor and Belinda can’t leave for five hours.
As they go inside the base, they begin to discover all the mirrors smashed and all the colonists dead, with the exception of one Aliss Fenly, the crew’s deaf cook who had to shoot her best friend, Sal, who tried to kill her. The Doctor goes with troop leader Shaya and second-in-command Cassio to investigate central control while Belinda stays with Aliss. During this, the Doctor and Belinda discover that to the crew, the planet Earth or the human race doesn’t exist.
Belinda begins seeing something behind Aliss, but no one else can. This happens again to Belinda, and soon, this happens to some of the crew as well. Aliss says that this is how it started and how she ended up killing Sal. One of the crew is ordered to go behind Aliss while she remains looking at another, and the crew member who went behind Aliss is thrown back and killed by an invisible enemy Stand.
The Doctor recovers the base commander’s final statement, showing the crew yelling about something coming out of the mine and they don’t know how to stop it. He begins to realise something; the galvanic radiation came from an X-tonic star before it burnt out 400,000 years ago, then during the wars, the carbon-46 was stripped off the surface of the planet and was left in ruins. Carbon-46 is also known as diamond and the surface of the planet was once made out of diamonds; Planet 6-7-6-7 is Midnight and the enemy Stand, the thing behind Aliss, is the Midnight entity, also known in the credits as “It has no name”. I’m gonna call it a Stand because it’s funnier and it’s totally not a JoJo reference.
The Doctor rushes back to Aliss just as the crew member dies. Belinda explains that if someone is looking at Aliss, then anyone who goes behind her dies - “if it was a clock-face, you die at midnight.” Cassio attempts to kill her but Aliss says that if he kills her then the Stand will go behind him; half the crew killed each other to get rid of it but it just went behind them. Cassio declares a Red Code and takes over command in an attempt to drag the Stand out into the open, but several troopers end up being thrown around as a result until Shaya manipulates the Stand into killing Cassio. Shaya decides that they need to leave Aliss behind and get off this planet, but after the Doctor tries to communicate with the Stand, shedding tears in fear over what he learns.
The Doctor realises that there is a way they can get Aliss off the planet; he has Shaya shoot the pipe vents to rain down a stream of mercury, causing the Stand to see itself; it destroyed all the mirrors in the base so that it couldn’t. Aliss is thrown forward and they run. As they get to the airlock, Aliss is sent up first, but then the Doctor and the others are suddenly attacked; the enemy Stand is now behind Belinda. Shaya decides to shoot Belinda and have the Stand go behind her before running back into the base and falling into the mine, taking the Stand with it before the whole base is nuked, until the next idiot somehow encounters the Stand in the rubble of what was a former diamond mine. Belinda had been shot precisely so that there was a chance she could survive, and of course she is saved.
Following this, one of the remaining crew members makes a report to someone who might be Squadron Leader Chinchappa, but is actually Mrs Flood, who asks her if the Doctor used a Vindicator, which she confirms. She’s going to be the Susan Triad of this series, isn’t she? The episode ends with another remaining crew member apparently seeing something behind the other’s back…
This episode is a sequel to Series 4’s Midnight and I have to say, it’s actually pretty good and better than the last two episodes despite being written by RTD, though I suppose he had to rein it in because this episode was co-written with Sharma Angel-Walfall. See what you can do when you’re not disrespecting continuity or attacking the fanbase? I suppose nuking the base with the enemy Stand inside was a way to deal with it, but I think it was just buying time until the next encounter, like how the hostess threw herself into the X-tonic light alongside the Midnight-possessed Sky back in the 2008 episode. I felt disappointed that we never really got to see the entity so it it could actually be dealt with; the Doctor Who Unleashed for this episode shows Paul Kasey wearing a mask for it, which I swear I’ve seen before because it looked a bit like the mask used for the Passenger form in Flux.
Aliss is played by Rose Ayling-Ellis, who was born deaf and thus her character is also deaf. The last time a deaf actor was in Doctor Who was in Series 9’s Under the Lake/Before the Flood, with Sophie Stone playing Cass, who is also mute on top of being deaf. Cass had a teammate, Tim Lunn (Zaqi Ismail), interpreting for her, but in this episode, Ncuti Gatwa had a bit of training in British Sign Language as well so the Doctor could directly communicate with Aliss (the last time, the Twelfth Doctor learnt semaphore and it apparently erased BSL from his mind so he could still sign, but he didn’t know what he was signing).
A little detail I noticed in the episode is that on top of signing, the Doctor also had to use the transcription/subtitling modules the rest of the crew used. One reason is, as Shaya says, is that they want all conversations audible (and documented), but another reason is that despite having subtitles on the screen, there is no way to convey emotion or emphasis through text alone, not to mention that signing is faster than captions or transcription during live events, and even then, captions or transcripts may not be 100% accurate.
Several BSL consultants and interpreters were brought onto the crew for this episode, plus Rose was given the script to review so she could give notes on the episode based on her experiences as a deaf person; there’s also a moment where the Doctor turns his back to Aliss and Aliss becomes distraught/angry at him because she doesn’t know what he is saying. As I was watching the episode before the revelation (I did hear rumours that this was going to be a sequel to Midnight), I almost thought Aliss was going to be the villain for this episode, which if she actually was, would have made RTD look hypocritical considering the “disabled people can’t be villains” thing.
Episode 4: Lucky Day
Like the last series, we’ve got another Doctor-lite episode along with the return of reincarnated Chris-chan Ruby Sunday.
On New Year’s Day 2007, an eight-year-old boy named Conrad Clark encounters the Doctor and Belinda using a Vindicator, the Doctor giving him a 50p coin and telling him it’s his lucky day. He goes back to tell his (alcoholic) mum but she tells him “enough with the lies”.
17 years later in 2024, Conrad sees the TARDIS again when he hears a noise inside the building. He goes inside, gets some goo on him and sees a Shreek before the Doctor and Ruby (from between episodes 2 and 3 of Series 14) deal with it. He learns that the pheromone from the goo will absorb into the bloodstream and mark them as future prey unless they take the antidote, which the Doctor gives to Ruby. As the two go back to the TARDIS, Conrad quickly takes a picture of Ruby and shares it.
A year later, Conrad is hosting a podcast featuring eyewitness accounts of the TARDIS; Ruby managed to find the photo of herself and went on the podcast for an interview. After recording the interview, Conrad takes Ruby out for a coffee and she tells him more about the Shreek; they come from their hive in a pocket dimension once a year to hunt, but this year, one of them comes to the same location it did last year, meaning that it had already marked its prey (Conrad) with its goo, but UNIT had already captured it. Ruby gives an antidote to Conrad and eventually, the two of them start dating.
Conrad mentions that his mum died of liver cancer and Ruby opens up to him about her experience with the Doctor in the TARDIS, fulfilling her need for someone to talk to about it. Conrad and Ruby head out on a weekend trip to a village called Colson where they meet the former’s friends. Ruby notices the electricity flickering in the pub and calls Kate at UNIT, only to find no signs of Shreek there. Soon, two Shreek show up outside as Conrad notes that one of his friends is missing.
Ruby heads outside to confront the Shreek and Conrad soon joins her as well. They seemingly find the remains of Conrad’s friend, at which point Kate and UNIT arrive. As the UNIT soldiers aim at the two Shreek, they stand on two legs and take off their masks; they were Conrad’s friends dressing up as them. Conrad reveals that he is part of a group called Think Tank, a group of alien-deniers aiming to expose UNIT’s lies and agenda, and that they are also livestreaming the event on social media.
Conrad and Think Tank are arrested, but they are released 24 hours later after public backlash. Think Tank doxes every person employed by UNIT and Ruby is brought to UNIT HQ. She learns that Conrad applied for a job at UNIT, was interviewed by Kate and was apparently rejected, plus his mother is very much alive, living in the south of France in a villa that he paid for. The containment cube containing the Shreek is about to be transferred to Geneva as Kate comes back after learning that the government is ordering an inventory audit of UNIT premises.
With help from an inside man, Conrad enters the building and heads up to the control room at the top. Kate reveals why she didn’t hire Conrad eight years ago and it’s because in her notes, she wrote “Don’t trust him” for some reason. In the confrontation, Kate shows Conrad the truth he has been demanding; she opens the helipad doors and lets the Shreek out of its cage - he hadn’t taken the antidote so the Shreek is still hunting for him (apparently people actually think this is some sort of parallel to antivaxxers lmao). With no way to escape, Conrad tries confronting the Shreek and it’s only when he is cornered and closed in that he admits that he lied about everything. Ruby gets the Shreek off of Conrad and tells him to go to hell. Conrad stands up, remaining defiant until the Shreek bites his arm off.
The next morning, Colonel Ibrahim tells Kate that she went a bit too far while Shirley notes that public opinion of UNIT has improved. Later, as Conrad sits in his prison cell, his arm reattached, the Doctor brings him inside the TARDIS to give him a lecture for betraying Ruby, saying that cowards like him weaponise lies and generate relentless noise to wear people down. Conrad asks the Doctor if he met Belinda yet (meaning this scene takes place just before the start of the series, which led to him trying to find her in the first episode), and the Doctor reveals to him that he dies in a prison cell at the age of 49, alone and unloved, while the world carries on. In response, Conrad says that he rejects the Doctor’s version of reality and tells him to put him back in his prison and get off his world. Conrad is then visited by Mrs Flood, acting as the governor of the prison, telling him that it’s his lucky day.
So let me get this straight. Conrad is enamoured by the Doctor but his mum doesn’t believe him, so he starts believing in aliens and tries to get into UNIT, but he gets rejected so he starts a podcast about the Doctor and the TARDIS, then he runs into the Doctor and Ruby having an adventure, takes a photo of Ruby and basically stalks her for a year until she goes onto his podcast, starts dating her to lead her on so she can meet his friends, then stages a fake alien sighting to “expose” UNIT which was apparently his target all along, get arrested then freed after suddenly having the public on his side, dox everyone working for UNIT and stage protests across the globe, then storm into UNIT HQ alone to make Kate admit that UNIT is faking everything only to get his arm bitten off and sewn back up like a doll?
What the fuck was this episode? Can I honestly call this another leftist fantasy episode, because after that twist I got so confused at the goodest logic going on in the second half I can’t even tell if it’s a leftist projection. How did Conrad’s pipeline go from meeting the Doctor to wanting to find the TARDIS to going full-blown ACAB at UNIT? If it was just getting rejected by UNIT alone then it’s honestly a stretch and a pretty weak justification, to put it lightly.
Straight white male (and SJW?) villain aside, this episode only serves to show that leftists don’t know what they’re talking about when they talk about “conspiracy theorist grifters”, which Conrad obviously seems to be an expy (or caricature) of. In this decade so far, these so-called “grifters” have been shining lights on tangible issues like lockdowns, vaccine mandates and the enshittification of Doctor Who and while I don’t agree with everything they say, that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have a point. Conrad is apparently trying to show people that UNIT are spying on people, covering up lies and faking alien invasions, but the episode doesn’t give any evidence to back his viewpoint or provide any motivation into his actions, so I couldn’t find anything agreeable with him even if I wanted to. Granted, we’ve all seen the series with the viewpoint that UNIT are the good guys so maybe the thought of UNIT doing shady things never occurred to anyone. Or maybe I’m just frustrated because I think grifters are right (sometimes).
You know, if this episode were done with the Tenth Doctor (not the Fourteenth) then I think the Doctor would have given Conrad a chance, to travel with the Doctor in the TARDIS on the off chance that he might rethink everything he’s done despite how contrived it came to be. If Conrad chose to reject that chance because he still denies it, then it would be on him.
This episode was written by Pete McTighe, with the scenario devised by RTD because of course it is. What the hell happened to you, Pete? You wrote two of the more decent Message episodes in the Chibnall era (Kerblam!/Praxeus) and now you’ve written something that is somehow even worse than the SJW-fest third episodes (Rosa/Orphan 55). I guess I should have expected better coming from someone who wrote for the Chibnall era. RTD wanted to explore evil in the form of “toxic online hatred”, but I think when he saw Conrad’s role in the story, he didn’t care how much sense anything else in the story made as long as it served the goal of “grifters bad”. Also, Pete, why did you pussyfoot around calling Conrad a “grifter”? You knew what you were doing with this episode, so you might as well have owned up to it.
By the way, this is an actual quote from Pete McTighe: “That speech I wrote for the Doctor at the end of the episode – he says everything I wanted to say.” Coincidentally enough, that scene was filmed on 23 November 2023, right on the day of the 60th Anniversary. What a happy birthday.
Let’s face it, we’ll definitely be seeing Conrad again in the series finale, otherwise Doctor-lite episodes are a waste of time when you only have eight episodes in a series. They’re good as filler episodes in a 13-episode series when time constraints meant that they had to be produced alongside another episode without the Doctor and/or the companion, which this one was as it was produced alongside the first episode. 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble were Doctor-lite episodes because Ncuti Gatwa was busy filming on Sex Education as production of Series 14 commenced, so that was excusable. And somehow, they weren’t as bad as this episode.
Of all the years I’ve watched Doctor Who, this is the first time I actually felt that an episode was actively insulting my intelligence. The Timeless Child, the bi-generation and the Sutekh bullcrap was insulting enough but at least I could understand what was happening. I saw though RTD’s intentions with the remarks about incels and #RIPDoctorWho in the first two episodes of this series. But this episode - what the fuck was it trying to say or do? Even if I knew, I’m still baffled at all the logical leaps that are apparently required to even agree with anything in the episode. Go check out Aimless Words’ review thread for this episode on Twitter. They put it better than I could have done here.
Anyone who likes this episode and thinks this is a gotcha on grifters or NMDs needs to take a good long look at themselves. The episode’s story doesn’t make sense and you know it.
Episode 5: The Story and the Engine
A note I made before watching this episode so I can prove myself right or wrong when I watch it - writer Inua Ellams apparently sees this episode as a companion piece to Dot and Bubble. You know, that episode with all the elitist nepo babies which, by the way, are actually thinly-veiled racists as well, and we totally didn’t see that twist coming when their attitudes could be written off as just being, you know, elitist? Yeah, I’ll bet anything that relates itself to that episode is going to be shit. Anyway, on with the story.
The Doctor gets the idea to head to Lagos, Nigeria to boost the Vindicator’s effect as it boats the largest technology market in Africa (for ewaste lmao) and it is near Omo’s Palace, a barbershop owned by Omo, who met the Doctor once as a boy in a forest fire. The Doctor frequents the barbershop because it’s a place where he is accepted, where he can get away from being differently in some parts of the world. So much for the Doctor saying that he shines over racism, but I can understand having a little place to get away from everything. Honestly, I eat out at Chinese restaurants and cha chaan teng cafés more than I eat out at pubs or fast food joints, so who am I to judge?
After using the Vindicator in 2019 Lagos, the Doctor leaves Belinda in the TARDIS while he heads to the barbershop. He notices a sign warning him to turn back followed by posters of missing people, including Omo and a few others. Entering the barbershop, the Doctor greets Omo and realises that the others inside are the missing people on the posters. The barbershop has a new owner, who has no name other than the Barber so I’ll call him as such. The Doctor notices one of the men’s hair growing back after just having had a haircut. He watches another man get a haircut and tell a story, which comes to life on a window, which seems to stablise something that they need to feed because it is hungry.
The Barber and his assistant, Abby, are the ones who are controlling whatever they are feeding. It is then that Abby comes back with food and the Doctor notes that he knows her face, but she just tuts at him. Huh, that’s the same reaction I got from Roberta Tubbs when I saw her in Quahog some years ago. The Doctor learns that the Barber and Abby used to work for the latter’s father and they are travelling somewhere. Omo met the Barber when he offered to give him a haircut in his own shop, but when he did, the shop seemed to transfer itself to him and Omo was unable to leave, along with the others who had come in, a select few who loved the shop.
The thing needs to be fed again and the Doctor offers to tell a story. The Doctor sits down in the chair and finds himself restrained for some reason. Compelled to tell a story, the Doctor tells a story of how Belinda helped save an old woman just as she was about to go home for her nan’s birthday. The Doctor’s story feeds the thing more than it did with the others, allowing them to go faster.
The Doctor’s hair grows back and he has a falling out with Omo over being used by him. He turns to leave, but when he opens the door, everything starts flying; it turns out that the barbershop is on a giant mechanical spider travelling through some kind of web that is apparently in outer space or something (was it though?). The Barber tells the Doctor that the shop are in outer space and Lagos at the same time; they are travelling through something called the Nexus, also known as the World Wide Web. A time-space compressor is fitted into the doorframe and only he and Abby can return to Lagos because they control it.
Belinda, having been affected by the alarms ringing in the TARDIS every time the barbershop door was manipulated, heads to the barbershop. The Barber says that he goes by many names, mostly those of gods related to stories. The Doctor and Belinda laugh at this, particularly because the Doctor has met all those gods before and the Barber is not any of them. The Barber admits everything; the storytelling gods needed to strengthen their bonds with humanity, so he travelled around the world to spread their myths so that they may be worshipped. He built the Nexus with a strand of the gods’ essence and collected the stories of humanity to feed the gods; later on, he built the Story Engine and powered it with the stories he collected before the gods threw him out of his life’s work when he wanted to be recognised; the Nexus had been primed so well that it would work without him.
The engine runs out of energy again. The Doctor realises that Abby is Abena, the daughter of the man-spider Anansi who wagered her to the Doctor and purposely lost the bet so he would marry her, despite his best efforts at trying to lose the bet himself. She ended up with the Barber after the Doctor abandoned her, because at the time he was- JO MARTIN, THE FUGITIVE DOCTOR?! Anyway, their objective is to take the shop to the heart of the nexus so that the Barber can become storyteller supreme. The Doctor recognises that the Barber is doing this for vengeance and the Barber reveals that he intends to cut the storytelling gods out of the Nexus and all of memory, destroying them and endangering humanity.
The Barber attempts to force the Doctor into the chair but Abby offers to tell the story herself. After Abby tells a story about how female slaves would braid their hair into maps so that they could help others escape, as slaves were not allowed to carry paper, the Doctor causes a distraction and uses the map Abby braided into his hair to get to the Story Engine with Belinda.
The Barber follows the Doctor to the Story Engine as well; noticing that the Barber had some Hemingway books on the shelves, the Doctor tells him a story about how he challenged Hemingway to write a story in six words. Suddenly, the engine somehow connects to the Doctor and stories of his past incarnations are displayed (luckily, nothing outside of what we’ve seen on TV), but the Doctor had taken out a third of the engine and his stories would cause it to overload. He makes the Barber choose between sacrificing seven billion people (by going through with his plan) or only seven people (by letting them go) and the wording of this is kind of weird when you think about it.
The Barber compresses the corridors and opens the door to the shop, allowing everyone to escape. The Doctor sends Belinda out as well before encouraging the Barber to escape with him as well, so he can live long enough to write his own six-word story. The Doctor and the Barber escape and the ship tries to manifest itself, but the Doctor sends it back to the Nexus where it explodes. The three men with Omo prostrate themselves before Abby and go on their way. The Doctor encourages the Barber to start his own barbershop and continue collecting stories for himself. Omo makes up with the Doctor and leaves his barbershop to the Barber, naming him Adetokunbo after his father. Abby parts ways with the Barber on good terms, unwilling to resent the Barber despite him lying to her about his motives.
Fugitive Doctor aside, this was a pretty good episode that proved my initial suspicions wrong. I can see where the Dot and Bubble parallel comes into play when the Doctor realises that Omo was using him for the Barber’s own ends. It’s a cultural episode representing Africa like Legend of the Sea Devils represented China. Also, the Doctor we saw at the end, when he was encouraging the Barber to write his own six-word story - where the hell was he last week when he was confronting Conrad in the TARDIS? Oh wait, he’s a straight white male grifter so he totally doesn’t deserve any mercy or redemption. We know he’s coming back for the finale, so if he doesn’t get a redemption arc or at the very least, an elaboration on his character, we’re going to have a serious problem. I’m still baffled over last week’s episode and I’m honestly baffled at how such a beautiful episode like this came after such an atrocious episode.
Episode 6: The Interstellar Song Contest
How fitting that this episode premiered on the day of the Eurovision Grand Final and that it was just squeezed in after the FA Cup final between Crystal Palace and Manchester City on BBC One.
The Doctor and Belinda arrive at the Harmony Arena in 2925 during the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest and decide to stay and watch after using the Vindicator. Mrs Flood is in the audience as well, confirming that the Doctor is using the Vindicator and that it has been primed after this use. Two men, Gary and Mike, are unable to get into their pod, which the Doctor and Bel are in, which ironically saves them from what happens next.
A Hellion named Kid hijacks the gallery and is revealed to be working with another Hellion named Wynn, switching the live feed to the dress rehearsal version. The Doctor suddenly realises something and jumps out of the pod to investigate as the contest begins. Kid turns off the safety protocols and opens the air shield, sucking all 100,000 beings out into space, including the Doctor, the TARDIS and Mrs Flood. Belinda is saved when she hits the roof of the pod before it closes on her.
Belinda heads out of the pod and into the hallway, where Cora from Trion and Len (her manager?) have also survived. Belinda is distraught that the Doctor is gone, while Len tries to access the computer core, but finds that something is rewriting everything.
The Doctor sees a vision of Susan Foreman (finally, they got Carole Ann Ford back) and somehow manages to unfreeze himself and fly himself back into the Harmony Arena using a confetti cannon. The Doctor faints upon entering and Mike helps him regain consciousness. The Doctor reveals that the 100,000 people outside are still alive because he triplicated the gravity mavity field. He accesses the computer core as well and discovers that the Hellions have uploaded a primitive delta wave, which will kill all 3 trillion people watching the contest.
Kid discovers the Doctor trying to interfere with the systems and Belinda manages to see him as well, much to her relief. Belinda hears the Doctor threatening Kid and realises something is off with him. Cora reveals that she knows Kid and Wynn because she is a Hellion as well, her horns cut off by force; the planet Hellia was harmless until it and its people were bought by the Corporation sponsoring the Song Contest, taking the Hell Poppy (which is used for honey… flavouring- damn, a Kamen Rider Gavv reference made before that series was commissioned lol) and its seeds and burning the fields so they could never grow it back. For some reason, the Hellions are “treated like scum across the galaxy” and rumours have been spread about the Hellions “doing it to themselves” and that they practice cannibalism and witchcraft.
Kid prepares to transmit the delta wave, but then the Doctor enters the gallery using a hologram decoy, destroys the delta wave device and disarms Kid before using a hard light hologram of himself to torture him. Susan, in his head, tells the Doctor to stop, but he doesn’t stop until Belinda comes in with Cora and he realises what he is doing. The gallery operator regains control and Kid and Wynn are taken away.
The Doctor enlists the help of Gary and Mike to bring everyone back into the Harmony Arena and unfreeze them. He also enlists Len’s help to turn a VIP pod into a revival booth so that everyone can be unfreezed faster. Once everyone is brought back, the contest is rendered null and void, but Cora gives a performance of a song from her home planet Hellia to 3 trillion people to remind them of the world that they lost. After the song, the arena slowly bursts into cheers for Cora.
The Doctor and Belinda prepare to leave in the TARDIS, but not before they are greeted by a hologram of Graham Norton, who informs them that Earth was destroyed on 24 May 2025, the day when Belinda left. Rushing back into the TARDIS, the Doctor plugs the Vindicator into the TARDIS, but as they set off, the console room glows red and the Cloister Bell rings before the TARDIS door blows in…
In a post-credits scene, Mrs Flood is the last person to be revived, but being in space for too long froze her double brainstem, causing her to bi-generate as she is revealed to be the Rani. Damn, so RTD did get the rights to the Rani. I said before that Sacha Dhawan’s Master in the Chibnall era should have been the Rani given that the Master died at the end of the Moffat era, but I guess that didn’t happen given that Chibnall slagged off the Rani’s creators, Pip and Jane Baker, back in 1986. Also, is RTD seriously making bi-generation the new regeneration? What happened to it being a myth?
Say what you will about the episode’s writer, Juno Dawson, I thought this episode was alright, save for the Doctor torturing Kid maybe. There have been theories and rumours that Mrs Flood was the Rani and I’m glad that the Rani has finally been reintroduced, despite everything else in this series. I also hope to see Susan again in the two-part finale after that red herring last series.
I thought that the Hellions hijacking the Song Contest was a parallel to Russia or Belarus being suspended from Eurovision over Ukraine or Israel continuing to participate in Eurovision despite what they are doing to Palestinians. However, seeing the dynamics between Kid, Wynn and Cora connected another parallel for me, namely the two main dynamics of the pro-democracy protesters during the Hong Kong protests of 2019-20. Kid and Wynn are the radical 勇武 valiants willing to use violent means to send their message, while Cora is the peaceful, rational and non-violent 和理非 who became a singer and performs at the Song Contest to spread the message of her home to the entire universe. But like other things in this series, we don’t get a deeper elaboration on the Hellions other than what we’ve been given. And if this actually is a jab towards Hong Kong/Ukraine/Palestine etc, honestly that is the least of my issues right now.
This review is getting too long so I’m splitting it into two parts. The series finale will be in the next part. My brain will never stop blowing up if I keep thinking about the goodest logic of Lucky Day for another second.
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