opinions on the other eps so far (i havent watched Rogue yet)
SPACE BABIES kinda ended up liking this despite myself even if im still allergic to the premise. Most of it is down to Gatwa & Gibson being fun together & capable at the double acting challenge of baby + ADR costars. Also it’s basically a higher budget retread of End of the World slash New Earth slash The Beast Below lol? a real pastiche. i guess its at least for new audience as much as me/moreso. enjoyed the unsubtle political commentary almost as much as the big fart joke but im a kroll/slitheen fan. so. It’s still not an episode i want to look at again
EDIT contractually obligated mention of part where Ruby briefly turns into a scalie
THE DEVILS CHORD kind of fucking allergic to this premise too honestly, i dont need any other media about how the Beatles was the coolest best most important band and history hinges on their existence. BUT again liked this partly despite myself. it is helpfully (in part cuz they could not actually afford Beatles music lol) more about “what would happen if a super campy villain killed music” with the Beatles as a big historical guest star to orbit that around. It does end up having some big musical theatre vibes that i was pretty into… between the showdown with the Maestro and the cute ending song (i liked the goblin song better but im alright with Doctor Who trying on this musical shit lol). Jinkx was a lot of fun but it’s stupid that they banished her with a major chord. was it supposed to be the big “Day in the Life” note?? that certainly would have benefited from a license
BOOM a much better splosion noise episode than Kerblam! thats for damn sure actually if you told me Moffatt wrote this in a fugue state after watching that episode i would absolutely believe you. It would explain why it is basically an incredibly pissed off rant about military industrialism & automated capitalism hastily glued together with cuttings from all his other scripts. (Oh and he obviously watched Genesis of the Daleks as a palette cleanser, that’s why this is one big episode based on that scene where 4th Doc gets stuck on a landmine) Im not gonna make it a secret i like RTD and i like Moffat even more, so i was kinda happy to just see Ncuti Gatwa act the shit out of a Moffatty Moffatt ass script. the Power of Daddies thing felt almost like self parody for him but otherwise i dug this one. Of all the ep premises so far this feels the most like one you could drop any Doctor into and get something fascinatingly different too which is always neat
I don’t care about getting Stephen Muppet’s name right
73 YARDS maybe my favorite Doctor Lite story ever? i guess Blink is hard to top since that one still relies on the Doctor Who premise more. this is more like, Doctor Who tries to intrude on a really spooky ghost story and the Doctor gets booted out of it. I’ve generally liked Ruby as y’know, Generic Companion whose game to have shenanigans with the Doctor (love the scene in Devils Chord where they race each other to get '60s outfits on) but this episode she really clicked with me – she becomes so sadly resigned to her fate by the end, it makes the seemingly arbitrary resolution work for me in more of a haunting way. It wasn’t torture it was some strange duty she was forced into by… god knows what??
(This is also where i’ll say i fuckin love the conceit since Wild Blue Yonder that the whoniverse is more screwed up by actual paranormal shit now, to me it’s the sonic screwdriver/psychic paper on a worldbuilding scale – skip the bit where you go “aaaawwhh but it was some aaaliens not magic actually” just do supernatural stuff whatever)
I love that Ruby thinks she’s solved the problem partway through, and yet it doesnt end her loop, and it’s never clear at all if she was even right. No lesson today kids
DOT & BUBBLE speaking of no lesson today!! I was spoiled on this one having an ending about RACISM but flippancy aside, imo it does a good job pretending it’s about “omg those kids and their social media!” without immediately drawing attention to all those kids being white, and by the time it does draw attention to that (by asking “what do all the victims have in common?” to the audience and their horrible influencer standin) its made it clear it’s about the modern-ish trope of rich people sending themselves and/or their awful progeny to the stars to “outsit eternity” as a certain big goofy scarf doctor once said. i picked up on it as like an undercurrent of “welp most megarich people like that are white arent they, cuz yeah”
So for me the big twist gutpunch of the episode is when our vapid Black Mirror villain protagonist who’s been an asshole the whole episode has whole mini redemption arc with a white standin for the Doctor, and then throws him to the dogs and escapes, because she still fuckin sucks and one bad day outside her bubble (lmao lol) isn’t going to change her. I loved that, its where this felt like it subverted the usual Doctor Who story this might be. That the show pulls back one more time and says yes, also she’s a fuckin white supremacist who won’t even let our beloved genius hero save her and her idiot friends, just feels like an extra bitter stab that gives the story relevance it couldnt have if a Black man wasn’t playing the Doctor
Like for the character the Doctor, this has never been a relevant issue and having it become one after he’s put in all this work to save these assholes is crazy making. Ncuti plays that perfectly, going from laughing manically to venting with rage to just moping back to the TARDIS looking furious at humanity in a perfectly Doctor way. Dude mustve felt that, as a fan of this show who’s gonna be judged for playing his favorite character just cuz he’s not a white dude or Jodie Whitaker
I confess i had a lot of thoughts on this one cuz i just watched it yesterday
