Doctor Who - Legend Of The Sea Devils

Pirate Ship Devils

Doctor Who -
Legend Of The Sea Devils
Airdate: 17th April 2022
BBC 1

Warning: Spoilers looping back into spoilers.

Okay, so, I may have got prematurely excited for a new spurt of good writing on Doctor Who after the brilliant New Years special Eve Of The Daleks (reviewed by me here) as, yeah, this episode wasn’t that great in many ways. But, it has to be said, the return of Sea Devils was not as badly handled as it was in their second appearance against the Fifth Doctor in Warriors Of The Deep (reviewed by me here). Although, yeah, not nearly as iconic an appearance as their first dance with the Third Doctor in the original story The Sea Devils (reviewed here), it might also be noted.

Doctor Who - Legend Of The Sea Devils gives us the returning triumvirate of Jodie Whitaker as The 13th Doctor (depending on how you count them, with the added complication of The War Doctor and various other manifestations), Mandip Gill as Yas and John Bishop as Dan. And it’s set in a couple of time zones in a sea faring adventure with a real, historical pirate queen (kind of) and various anachronistic shipboard instruments or overlooked details such as, you know, the fact that a cannon has a bit of recoil when fired.

It also suffers a little in the writing, I thought. The story was the usual, ‘think of a jam and then spout scientifiction gobbledy gook to enable a gadget to save the world’ kind of thing... which is getting a bit tired. And some of the dialogue was bad too. The stuff with Yas and The Doctor trying to come to terms with their recent, much rushed burgeoning romance was okay (but, you know, could have done with a longer playing out of that rather than start it off two episodes before Jodie leaves the show) and those were definitely the best moments in it. However, a load of the rest of the dialogue sounded like characters were trying too hard to say something big, surprising or funny to transition into the next scene with and, yeah, it kinda ended up sounding a little stilted and child-like in its performance (much like the dialogue in Pierce Brosnan’s last James Bond movie Die Another Day). It was a bit much and left me kind of cold, which is a shame.

However, I’m going to temper all that with... the show looked pretty good. Especially when it came to getting the Sea Devils right.  I mean, they’ve streamlined them a bit and they were nowhere near as good at creating a sinister presence in the episode but, they were a darn site better than their truly, comically bad re-designs from the Peter Davison era, at an rate. Yeah, I missed the Pertwee era’s string vests but, at least the costumers added a kind of echo to that in the texture of their new clothing for this one.

The mucic was okay too although, since Silva Screen now seem to have totally stopped releasing proper CDs of the scores, I’ve kind of lost all interest in that aspect of the show. I think they’re alienating a certain section of their audience by cutting off the supply chain there.

Overall, like I said, Doctor Who - Legend Of The Sea Devils wasn’t terrible but it could have been a lot better. I didn’t mind it but, unlike the New Years Eve story, it will be forgotten quickly, I suspect. So, we have one more Jodie episode to come this autumn (although I’d be surprised if she didn’t return for a guest spot in the November 2023 episode). And it looks like it’s pitting her against... the Daleks, the Cybermen and The Master again so... yeah, not the most inspiring of challenges, I suspect. 

However, there is one aspect of the Coming Soon trailer at the end of that episode which certainly, already, has fans talking... and that’s a bit of T & A action which everyone seems excited about. By that I mean, the return of Janet Fielding’s Tegan (Fourth & Fifth Doctor companion) and Sophie Aldred’s Ace (companion to the Seventh Doctor). It will be nice to see them in action again, for sure but, I think it kinda says something that we’ve just had an episode featuring the return of the Sea Devils and all people are talking about is the trailer for the next show. Perhaps the reveal on the casting decision was a bit too soon (although, hopefully, there will be some other surprises in store for us in the episode itself). My only other complaint, seeing that they’ve stripped it down again from 13 episodes to two or three specials (again, depending on how you count them) is that the episode was only 50 mins long, like a regular episode. Since when did ‘specials’ stop being feature length?

Anyway, it was entertaining enough and, as always, it’s nice to see Jodie as The Doctor and still, I insist, doing very well in the role despite the scripts she’s working with. So I do hope she returns for the sixty year anniversary episode next year. Also hoping all in our house are safe and well enough to watch that one when it comes on.... but that’s another story.

Doctor Who - Eve Of The Daleks

Exterminating Eve

Doctor Who
Eve Of The Daleks
Airdate: 1st January 2022
BBC 1

Warning: Spoilers looping back into spoilers.

Now this is more like it. Doctor Who - Eve Of The Daleks is the best Doctor Who New Years Special ever... with one or two caveats. And also, I mean, yeah there have only been three New Years specials to date, this one being the third but, even so, this was a hugely entertaining one and I loved it. It’s also the first time in a while that Doctor Who has properly aired on a Saturday evening again (which is exactly where it belongs).

Okay, so we have, once again and for the record... Jodie Whitaker, Mandip Gill and John Bishop returning as The Doctor, Yas and Dan. The plot is simple... The Doctor performs a reset on the TARDIS and, while they wander around in a storage facility in Manchester, our heroes get sucked into a time loop, which is presumably caused by the TARDIS, as they try to stop customer Nick (played by Adjani Salmon) and Sarah (played by some woman I’d never heard of called Aisling Bea who, honestly, knocked this out the park and should be in everything from now on) from being killed by rogue Daleks. Trouble is, when they and also The Doctor and her companions get killed each time, it resets the time loop but leaves their memories of their last encounter intact... and they have a slowly diminishing amount of time to try and formulate a plan before the time loop closes at midnight on New Years Eve 2021, defeat the Daleks and remain outside the area of said time loop.

Now, I will be the first to admit many faults with this episode...

Yes, it’s such an old plot it’s unreal that anyone would try and package this idea up yet again. I mean, I don’t remember if they’ve ever bothered doing this one in Doctor Who before but the old ‘attempt to survive each successive time loop’ idea has been done in many sci-fi shows over the years.

Additionally, a lot of it didn’t make sense... such as why the characters assumed the time-loop would be closing at midnight or why their interaction with Sarah’s mum via phone wasn’t affecting the rest of the world and dragging it into a time loop also. And I could probably go on with a whole laundry list of things which shoot holes through this particular plot device.

However, the execution of this... well, asides from the science and technical stuff... was absolutely brilliant. Sarah and Nick were drawn as great characters who managed to shift tone and get together romantically by the end of their time loop experience and the actors had some great lines to deliver. Ditto for The Doctor and her companions. Dan has finally made clear to the characters (if not the audience... I was slowly beginning to suspect, I think) that there’s a probable lesbian romantic entanglement to come between The Doctor and Yas. Which could be interesting but, you know, probably not in any way that the show could get away with and stay a family show (back to the old Dalek porn if you want to go that route, I’m afraid).

And yeah, I was suitably impressed with the whole shenanigans. Also the music was great again too. Segun Akinola provides a score which, amazingly, doesn’t suffer from not including the leitmotif set up for the Daleks by Murray Gold and the driven, bass rhythms used here work really well to help establish them as something of a threat again. That being said, they seem fine at point blank range with their new ‘gatling gun’ style, revolving extermination attachments but... well... just a few metres off with a moving target and, once more, their skills at shooting resemble the stormtroopers in the Star Wars franchise. As in... they can’t hit a thing.

There were some nice references to old Doctor Who history too. For instance, Nick does the old ‘duck down between two shooting Daleks’ trick to take two of them out, which harks back to the William Hartnell and Peter Cushing days if memory serves. And also, at one point in the episode, Sarah exclaims “Oh my giddy Aunt!”... which was, of course, one of Patrick Troughton’s catchphrases as The Doctor at the tail end of the 1960s. That being said, no matter how many times the Daleks have come to Earth now and tried to invade it... how in heck do people still not remember them? It’s a little less than credible that, after everything they’ve put the human race through time and time again, that nobody seems to remember them (unless they work in UNIT, maybe).

And, yeah, that’s that... things are set up for what I think, if I got this right, are Jodie Whittaker’s last three special episodes over the year in the title role. I’m assuming that Yas will also either die or carry on assuming The Doctor has died by the end of Jodie’s last show. I guess we’ll find out by the end of the year. One thing we do have to look forward to though, via the post credits trailer for the next special, is the return of the old Jon Pertwee monster from the 70s (reviewed here and with a brief but memorably bad return in Peter Davison’s reign in the 1980s, reviewed here), the Sea Devils. They always frightened me as a kid and, hopefully, they can be frightening enough again for me to take away the memory of their second appearance in the show. So hopefully... third time’s a charm.

Either way, Doctor Who - Eve Of The Daleks... old plot, technically questionable but, hey, great acting, great music, entertaining presentation... a generally brilliant episode, for sure. This one has, temporarily, restored my faith in the good Doctor, I have to say.

Doctor Who Flux - The Vanquishers

Split Infinity

Doctor Who Flux
Chapter Six - The Vanquishers
Airdate: 5th December 2021
BBC 1

Warning: More spoilers.

Wow... saved the universe again then.

The final part of Doctor Who Flux, The Vanquishers was, well, it was a bit anti-climactic really. Once again Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor, companioned with her regular ‘besties’ Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop) defend the Universe from the evil swarm. Teamed up with Professor Jericho, Bel, Vinder, The Dog Man, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and Diane from previous episodes. And absolutely nothing is revealed about what the heck any of it is really about by the conclusion of the show.

The novelty aspect this week is The Doctor somehow fragmented and split into three splinters of herself to work with her companions in various time zones simultaneously to defeat the big bad guys The Swarm... and all the other monsters such as Sontarans, Cybermen and Daleks. As usual, the scriptwriters attempt to blind the audience with scientific jargon rather than explain the dynamics of both this transformation and the ultimate defeat of the Flux... and The Swarm. Well, okay, I kind of understood the clichéd old matter VS anti-matter tactic but, yeah, it seemed such a basic idea that one wonders why pretty much anyone in the rest of the universe hadn’t thought of it first.

So... acting was all very good and the old “contact” exclamation to establish a mental link, this time with two Doctors of the same incarnation, was a nice little Easter egg for long term fans who remember stories like The Three Doctors I guess (review coming to this blog in 2022, fingers crossed). They even threw in a character death to try to keep up the audience interest but, nah, it was an okayish episode I guess but that tactic didn’t really do much for me and it was telegraphed so early... and with a character who’s only been in the two previous episodes... that it felt a bit flat, to be honest.

The real kicker on this is the fact that, asides from The Doctor being aggressively warned by the essence of time manifesting as herself towards the end... we get no clue as to what this has all been about in terms of her past and her links to division. Indeed, the dog man even, it turns out, was once her loyal friend in the days she has no memory of... but if he ever talks about it, an implant put in his blood by The Division will let out a poison and he’d be dead within three seconds, so he can’t tell her anything. Vinder and Bel’s baby was an equal wash out... it’s possibly nobody special at all, unless they decide to bring these two characters back in one of the three specials next year.

So all we have left is a tearful Doctor, who is once again travelling the universe, this time with Yaz and Dan as her constant companions... and the Timelord pocket watch which holds all the memories which she’s lost. But, rather than open it and get full disclosure of her past lives, she instead buries it in the heart of the TARDIS with instructions for her to never be allowed to get a hold of it.

It’s interesting because the special effects were all fine (as much as they could be in a show which has a long standing history of having special effects which aren’t always that fine) and the episode was really going for a kind of epic look to it. However, for all the whiz bang glitz and light shows, it felt perhaps the least epic of any of the installments which made up this six part mini series and, certainly, not really something worthy of what some of the more interesting episodes this year have been teasingly building too. At least, that’s what I thought.

And so once again I am left with nothing much more to say about this one. Sorry it’s such a short review, again... but Doctor Who Flux - The Vanquishers really didn’t do much for me and, since the whole serial was so wedded to the underlying story arc, it kinda takes the other episodes down in flames with it too. I mean, it’s kinda okay but, yeah, maybe I’m expecting more from Doctor Who these days. I think we could really do with a return to form, to be honest. Not exactly my favourite episode or season and, well, I still think the writing needs to be less lazy on the science and, just a bit better than this. I love Jodie as The Doctor but, once again, I wouldn’t recommend this year’s series as being in any way special. But, you know, it’s just in a slump. That can change... I’ll be watching on New Year’s Day, for sure.

Doctor Who Flux - Survivors Of The Flux

Eon Flux

Doctor Who Flux
Chapter Five -
Survivors Of The Flux
Airdate: 28th November 2021
BBC 1

Warning: More spoilers.

Okay, so that was a fairly good episode as it happens and I would probably rate it a lot higher if it hadn’t proceeded from one huge... I’m going to call it a mistake or perhaps, more of an ‘error in judgement’ when some important information was perhaps cut for time?

So, yeah, this is going to be a short review but, for the most part, Doctor Who Flux - Survivors Of The Flux, was an exciting and thoroughly entertaining installment. So The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) is not an Angel after all, just was shipped between universes in that form to where The Division are polishing off their last universe before travelling into another iteration of the multiverse.

Meanwhile, Yaz (Mandip Gill), Dan (John Bishop) and Professor Jericho (Kevin McNally), who had all been left in a shrinking village in last weeks episode, Village Of The Angels (reviewed here) are off on some kind of quest given to them by a hologram of The Doctor left in Yaz’s care, which activated once she had been separated from The Doctor for more than two weeks. So they are travelling all over the world of the early 1900s (and have been for three years) in search of various non-essential ‘busy work’ clues to give them something to do in the script... and that’s my one big problem with this episode. As entertaining as it was. Um... yeah... so does anyone remember that the village they were trapped in was getting rapidly smaller until they would soon end up as corpses floating in the void of space? Well then how the heck can they be globe hopping when it was made pretty clear that they were currently inhabiting a pretty finite version of what remained of Earth? So unless some pretty necessary information was left out of the story for some inexplicable reason... this makes no sense at all. What the heck?

In other story strands... Bel (Thaddea Graham) and Vinder (Jacob Anderson) are still looking for each other and keep playing with different parts of the story ark. Are they The Doctor’s parent’s who leave their child at the end of a wormhole or is something else less revelatory coming? Remembering we have only one episode left of this series.

And, of course The Doctor’s memories were suppressed in a Time Lord style pocket watch... except, hasn’t The Doctor (in David Tennant form) hidden his memories in a pocket watch before now? So, yeah, how does that work then? That must be traumatic. A kind of memory wipe on top of a memory wipe and, if so, then why weren’t all The Doctor’s memories restored to him in one hit back in the Tennant days? I guess this is why people need... I don’t know... some kind of show bible maybe, to refer to so they don’t get their stories bogged down with such inconsistencies. Yeah, okay, I’m being a touch sarcastic here, I’m sure they must have one but then why do they ignore it constantly? Because if someone like me can remember stuff like this, well I’m sure everyone else does too.

Okay, so... other than all this... yeah, really enjoyed this episode. Mandip Gill and John Bishop seem to have good chemistry together and Kevin McNally makes a nice third. It was nice hearing a sound bite from Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart during the early years of UNIT in 1968, maybe a month or two before he first met The Doctor as seen in the Patrick Troughton era story The Web Of Fear (reviewed here). And it was nice seeing Jemma Redgrave back as his daughter Kate Lethbridge-Stewart in the 2021 section of the story too.

And... yeah, I still don’t like the main villains in this and I still think it’s a deeply flawed series but, okay, this one was one of the more watchable episodes this year. I think how the show finally falls with the long term fans all hinges on next week’s episode which, honestly, will have move fairly rapidly to a quick conclusion to this season, for sure. I wonder if we’ll lose the companions by the end of that episode?

So yeah, short review from me again for Survivors Of The Flux and, I hope I’m still caring about the characters a tiny bit after any revelations visited upon us next week. I guess I’ll report back soon on that one.
 

Doctor Who Flux - Village Of The Angels

Village People

Doctor Who Flux
Chapter Four
Village Of The Angels
Airdate: 21st November 2021
BBC 1

Warning: Spoilers sweetie!

Okay, so this week’s episode, the fourth installment of the latest Doctor Who serial Flux, is Village Of The Angels. Set mostly in 1967, it’s kind of got an almost John Wyndham feel to it to start off with... once The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) has saved Yaz (Mandip Gill), Dan (John Bishop) and herself from the Weeping Angels who had invaded the TARDIS at the end of the previous episode (by ejecting them under the blind of more scientific, jargon laden jiggery pokery.

So they all find themselves in a village on the evening of 21st November 1967 (literally 54 years to the day before this episode was broadcast), with a group of villagers trying to find a 10 year old girl who has gone missing. Well... Yaz and Dan find out where she is fairly quickly, as an Angel gets them and whizzes them back to 1901, where they find the girl but in a deserted version of the village which has been ‘quantum extracted’... the borders of this version of the world slowly shrinking to the bleak void of space just outside the borders of the land mass.

Meanwhile, The Doctor finds Claire (Annabel Scholey), the woman from the first episode, The Halloween Apocalypse (reviewed here) in 1967 but it doesn’t quite explain why, when The Doctor first met her, she had somehow taken ‘the long way home’ without ageing... and I don’t think they’re going to explain that now, either. It’s really sloppy writing but I suspect it’s going to remain another of those interminable loose ends. By the finish, the rogue Weeping Angel which, it turns out, has inhabited Claire’s mind to get The Doctor to help it stay safe from its fellow Angels (who work for the mysterious Division, who we saw the other version of The Doctor working for last week)... changes the deal and instead uses Claire to lure The Doctor, her memories of working for The Division still wiped, to a point where she can be ‘recalled’ and then turned into a Weeping Angel herself!

Also meanwhile... Bel (Thaddea Graham) is still looking for Vinder (Jacob Anderson) and the search continues as they manage to miss each other on a planet as Bel works the other, post-Flux end of the story involving the villainous Swarm. I'm now wondering if the baby (or one of the babies plural, possibly) inside her is actually The Doctor, to be honest.

Okay, so the Weeping Angels were absolutely brilliant in their very first Steven Moffat penned story Blink... no question it was one of the best episodes of the show ever. However, since then, Moffat continued to use them in ways which severely compromised or made mistakes about the rules under which the ‘quantum locked if you observe them’ Angels function and, alas, while this particular episode was thoroughly entertaining, it continued the traditions of a) breaking the rules and b) further draining their impact with another new element to their personalities we’ve not seen before.

The first problem is, if there’s someone else observing them at the same time you are then they can’t move in on you, right? You’d think that would be an easy rule not to break but, no, dramatic effect means that this is going to happen even though there are clearly eyes on them a couple of times. And, no, running through the wet paint of your painted in corner by saying ‘oh, don’t get in front of them otherwise we can’t see them’ is a complete cop out and, frankly, a load of rubbish... you’d still be able to see a bit of a shoulder or a foot.

Second problem... yeah, due to holding on to one of their possessed humans they can now communicate by first speaking through her and then speaking through... I dunno. Not sure but giving these previously silent and therefore more disturbing and sinister stone cold killers the power of speech really robs them of that unique quality. They instantly become less scary... especially since you can now at least have a stab at negotiating with them. It robs them of any scariness and softens them up once again.

Also, yeah, totally called it back in episode one that The Doctor and the Angels would be working together in some capacity and, though it was a short alliance, I’m not completely sure we’ve got to the point yet where that particular team-up might not be needed again. It’s a good cliff hanger to leave things on... The Doctor now a stone angel about to be returned to The Division while leaving her companions in an ever decreasing 1901 and, yeah, you have to wonder where they are going with this... particularly since there are only two more episodes left to go. I’m really dreading the ending to be honest but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for it to not just ask another load of uninteresting questions about The Doctor’s origins... which we’ve not needed to hear about for the majority of the show’s 58 year history.

Not much else to say though. There were some nice visual references which recalled Amy Pond’s first encounter with the Weeping Angels from Matt Smith’s first season and Village Of The Angels was certainly better than the other three episodes so far. It is very much becoming a proper serial too, although it does still feel like two stories threaded together after the fact. What this means, though, is you do need to watch these 'in order', to make any sense of them (and even then, you might not have much luck with that as far as episode three is concerned) so, yeah, nice episode, deeply flawed when it comes to the ‘guest antagonists’ and definitely not a jumping on point. As usual, I’ll keep my eye on it and see how this one develops. Oh and by the way... those old 1967 television sets were a lot heavier to carry than that, I believe.

Doctor Who Flux - War Of The Sontarans

 


Wok Around The Clock

Doctor Who Flux
Chapter Two
War Of The Sontarans
Airdate: 7th November 2021
BBC 1

So Jodie Whittaker returns as The Doctor once again in the next installment of the Doctor Who Flux storyline, along with Mandip Gill as regular companion Yaz and John Bishop as new companion Dan. In this episode, the Flux which took a charge at the TARDIS in the previous episode causes said TARDIS to be thrown back to the Crimean War in a story segment called War Of The Sontarans.

And that’s exactly what the three of them find in the Crimean War... that Russia never was and that Sontar exists in its place, with the Sontarans fighting the British. They also meet historical nurse Mary Jane Seacole and, when Yaz and Dan are mysteriously flung out of this time zone and location by forces unknown, The Doctor uses Mary to help defeat the Sontarans, with a little bit of help from Dan, armed with a Wok to bash the Sontarans up on the little weak spot on the back of their heads (their probic vent)... and his designated Dog-man, who have now pitched up back in 21st Century Liverpool, which is also now run by Sontarans.

Meanwhile, Yaz and a guy who was scooped up from his galactic probe in last week’s episode, called Vinder and played by Jacob Anderson (who was apparently a star of Game Of Thrones? I’ll ask my girlfriend.), seem to be caught up in a scheme by the super villains of the piece, who call themselves The Swarm. They have partially destroyed the guardians of a structure which prevents all of time from doing nasty and unexpected things which, frankly, it’s doing a lot of right now... what with the Sontarans launching a kind of time pincer attack at various points in Earth’s history with their collective cry of “Sontar-Ha!”. That’s their basic tenet I guess (I’m here all week folks!).

And... it’s not a great episode by any stretch. And it’s also not a terrible one. I don’t particularly like The Swarm all that much but they are certainly an intimidating and ruthless lot of villains, for sure. I’ve never liked the Sontarans all that much, even when I watched them back in the 1970s when they made their first appearance opposite Jo Pertwee’s incarnation of The Doctor. The only time I enjoyed their presence was when they introduced Strax into the series.

So I was particularly annoyed at the missed opportunity that one of the Sontarans fighting here didn’t get left behind in Victorian times and turn out to be the very same Strax... and that’s how he ended up on Earth with a Silurian and her human wife as a Victorian detective team, as featured in previous episodes of the show during Matt Smith’s tenure. That being said, I kept thinking that would happen because Dan Starkey, who played Strax the Sontaran, is also in this episode and, well, one Sontaran looks and sounds more or less the same as the next, I guess.

But while I’m talking about Strax... another thing which annoyed me is the fact that we are told the Sontarans need to collectively return to their ships for seven minutes out of every 27 hours to top up their uniforms, which apparently allow them to survive on Earth. First I’ve heard of it, especially since Strax was as likely to be wearing an evening jacket or suit for dinner in previous episodes of the show set in Victorian England... so, yeah, just make those new rules up with no concern for the continuity errors you are causing in the previous stories guys... I’m sure the Doctor Who fan base will thank you for that one.  

Okay, the special effects were okay for a BBC production, the actors all good and the story was, well, it would have made a good Target novelisation back in the 1970s but this felt a little underwhelming as an episode, it has to be said. But, like I also implied, not so terrible that it was as bad as some of the stories we’ve been getting over the last few years. I was a bit upset that, once again, the writers played the old ‘the alien race is fleeing but the somewhat evil human ally is going to take the opportunity, when their back is turned, to slaughter them anyway’ card... we’ve seen this done so many times on the show that it’s become an unloved cliché as far as I’m concerned.

And that’s me done on episode two of Doctor Who Flux: War Of The Sontarans. A very short review and I apologise for that but I’m not going to pass judgement too quickly because I’m aware that we are only seeing one fragment of the overall story here... although it looks like they’re just hitting set pieces and then linking it with an underlying arc to help cement unrelated adventures together, to be honest. Although, there’s more of the underlying arc showing than there usually would be in recent, previous seasons, I’ll give them that. So, yeah, anyway, next week we’re back with the Cybermen making an appearance so... lets see how that one goes. We’ll be halfway through the series already by then.

Doctor Who Flux - The Halloween Apocalypse

Man’s Best Friend

Doctor Who Flux
Chapter One
The Halloween Apocalypse
Airdate: 31st October 2021 BBC 1

Well that was alright.  

 Doctor Who returns to our screens once more after a lengthy absence and, despite my misgivings about the show because, frankly, it’s been hit and miss just lately... mostly miss... it turns out that the first episode of the new mini series episode of Doctor Who Flux,  The Halloween Apocalypse, is quite an exciting and interesting set up for what I hope will be a thrilling story arc binding this exceptionally and inexcusably short season together. Despite all my expectations and after, it has to be said, a fairly shaky opening.

That opening being The Doctor, played by the always wonderful (despite the scripts she gets) Jodie Whittaker and her remaining companion Yaz, played by Mandip Gill, escaping from an elabourate deathtrap in about as dodgy a way as possible. Why is it remote controlled death probes can’t shoot for toffees? However, after this elabourate opening, things immediately get exciting and, as importantly, intriguing as we watch the mystery set up of a new story develop.

First things first, we get a new companion introduced called Dan (played by someone called John Bishop who is apparently famous but, I confess, I’ve not seen him before). We also have his potential love interest introduced but, Dan’s too busy being kidnapped by a dog-man kind of alien and having his house shrunk down to something the size of a fist to be worrying about that too much just yet.

Meanwhile, The Doctor and Yaz are trying to stop the Earth from being destroyed but there’s something The Doctor is not telling her... that she keeps having visions of an ancient enemy who she doesn’t recognise (my money at the moment is on another incarnation of The Master and, I suspect, his similarly ugly alien companion may possibly be a future version of The Doctor herself... but I’m probably wrong about that one... it’s probably a bit too obvious).

Then, when The Doctor and Yaz ‘rescue Dan’, it turns out that the various ships of the particular species aligned with dogs really are man’s best friend. They are each assigned to one human to get the humans off the Earth before the planet is destroyed by... The Flux.

Now the Flux is some kind of energy source which is eating through the entire universe and, so far it seems, The Doctor can do nothing to stop it. Also thrown into the mix is a woman on Earth who isn’t recognised by The Doctor but she definitely knows her. She is taking ‘the long way home’, which I assume means she’s existing on Earth and has somehow been thrown back in time and she’s just waiting to catch up... somewhere in our future. This is confirmed soon after, in a way, when she runs afoul of a Weeping Angel who whisks her back to Liverpool in 1820 by the looks of it. Although how she’s not aged by the time she returns to 2021 if she originally went back in time the same way also throws up questions about her actual species. Also, don't quote me on this but... why am I getting the feeling the angels aren't actually working ‘against’ The Doctor this time around? Hmm... time will tell.

And it’s in Liverpool of 1820 that a man is building a mystery project which, you at first think might be quite sinister but, with the way the episode has gone so far, I suspect is some kind of ark or rescue structure built in our past to rescue humanity in the future. I expect we’ll find out at some point towards the mid-way part of the story arc, is my guess.

Throw into the mix Dan’s love interest, who is kidnapped by the main bad guys (identity unknown but, like I said, I had my suspicions) and a group of rowdy Sontarans... and we have a recipe for success. And if that wasn’t enough, the TARDIS also seems to be in a state of flux, with new doors popping up in the interior... and also a special message for long standing fans of the show. By which I mean, the dreaded cloister bell in the TARDIS is ringing the house down... and as every Doctor Who fan has known since the cloister bell was first introduced in Tom Baker’s final story in 1981, this means bad news is coming. Could it be the bad news that the Flux is now coming for the TARDIS and is about to disintegrate our heroes? Well, not all bad news because, at the very least, Doctor Who has become a serial again like it was in the old days... along with a cliff hanger ending which crosscuts to all of the important characters included in the mix thus far (and I believe a fair few classic monsters will be turning up in the story over the next few weeks... Daleks and Cybermen for sure).

And, yeah, apart from the rough opening to the episode, I had a blast with this one all the way through. My only other problem other than the first five minutes was that, for an episode which is partially set in 2021, why the heck was nobody wearing Covid masks. We already knew Covid 19 exists in the Doctor Who universe because we had a very short clip of Jodie as The Doctor telling kids to wash their hands and mask up, right at the start of the pandemic last year. So is everyone in this episode just being completely irresponsible for not masking up? Not sure what’s going on here but it seems a bit of a strange oversight considering that the earlier short suggested it’s ‘a thing’ in the world of Doctor Who.

But there we are... I liked the set up, liked the new assistant, Jodie and Mandip were pretty cool and the pace was fast and furious, what with the amount of different story elements already thrown at us. I hope show runner Chibnal can land a decent conclusion this time around when we get to episode six is all I’m keeping my fingers crossed for right now. This episode was a blast and... long may it continue.