Doctor Who - The Story And The Engine

 

ScheWhoRazade

Doctor Who -
The Story And The Engine
UK/USA 2025
Airdate: 10th May 2025

Warning: Story and cameo spoilers.

Yeah, go on then. Some films or TV shows have absolutely terrible trailers which practically warn you away from the idea of watching them but, if you do end up seeing the final product, they actually turn out pretty great... the Terry Gilliam movie The Adventures Of Baron Munchhausen would be a typical example for me (and, of course, the opposite effect can, more often be true). And this latest episode of Doctor Who, The Story And The Engine, is a good example of just this phenomenon. I watched the preview trailer last week and my heart sank. It looked absolutely dire and I finally gave up on the thing. But, since I’m guessing that this will be the show’s final season before cancellation (I sincerely hope not but the ratings are the lowest the show has ever had in its 62 year history), I soldiered on and just wanted to get through this experience as quickly as possible because... well, I’ll miss it when it’s gone.

So I’m thankful that this particular episode was actually a nice change of pace and a breath of fresh air for the continuing adventures of The Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa and Belinda, played by Varada Sethu. And it’s all set in a barber shop in Lagos. Well, not just in Lagos.... because once you enter through the door and become one of the customers in the small shop where 99% of the show takes place, you are held there indefinitely because the shop is also part of a giant mechanical spider travelling through space and powered by the stories that the customers tell, to keep it going on its journey and keep themselves alive (so, yeah, a spin on the story of Scheherazade for sure).

An it’s a talkie one which doesn’t rely at all on any action (although the special effects team powered by the Disney money certainly couldn’t resist an explosive conclusion to the tale) and instead it’s all about why the new owner of the shop is involved in all this in the first place and how he is, with the help of the daughter of a God, on a special agenda of his own making. And, okay, maybe it dragged just a little towards the end and couldn’t, perhaps, bring in a denouement quite worthy of the prolonged build up but... I have to say I was mostly intrigued by it and also pleasantly surprised that the appearance of Mrs. Flood this week (played by Anita Dobson) seemed almost coincidental to the story and less sinister (saying that, I don’t think the idea of delving into stories, is quite done with for this year’s series).

And, when the various tales were being told, we got a nice mixture of live action coupled with unfolding animations which were rendering the words of the story as each person spoke. This was nicely done and added rich texture to the episode, for sure.

Now there were some slight down beats, since the main character once again lived up for my new name for this incarnation, The Crying Doctor. But, there was also a nice surprise in the brief cameo return of Jo Martin as the incarnation known as The Fugitive Doctor. I’m thinking we may not be quite done with her yet... or at least that might have been the long term plan. It’s nice to see her in a story outside of the Jodie Whitaker era of the show and perhaps we will see her at the end of this season. It was also nice to hear and see clips from the lives of past incarnations of the Doctors once again... good stuff.

But that’s me done with The Story And The Engine and I thought that was one of the best, if not the best, of this new series by far. And once again I’m in the position where the trailer for next weeks show, which takes place in and around a kind of Intergalactic version of the Eurovision Song Contest, looks absolutely dire and unwatchable. So who knows, perhaps it will be a good one after all.