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10 hours ago
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In a series of Doctor Who with only eight episodes, having a Doctor-lite episode feels something of a luxury. This greatest hits remix of previous episodes like Love and Monsters, Blink and Turn Left, where we only see glimpses of the Doctor in the background, just about earned its place in the run.
Much of the weight of the episode was carried by whether you could invest in hate-watching Jonah Hauer-King as odious grifter Conrad Clark, the podcast host and conspiracy theory propagandist who had gone through what he called the “chore” of getting to know Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) in order to “expose the lies” of Unit.
Having already watched Ruby live out a post-Doctor life in a different timeline in 73 Yards, there was a real risk of a re-tread, as this episode hit several similar beats, including her aimlessness and romantic failures, and being trapped in a pub in a small village with a menace outside. But Gibson got the best line. Asked who put her in charge, her delivery of “or go and get some fresh air, big man, and see what happens” was deliciously waspish.
Pete McTighe had previously written the muddled messaging of Kerblam! for the 13th Doctor, and did a better job here of targeting the conspiracy sphere than he did targeting Amazon in that. The tension ratcheted up sharply once Unit were on the scene, and Jemma Redgrave (Kate Lethbridge-Stewart) was put in a position where she ceased knowing where to draw the line.
The episode touched upon modern phenomena with the doxing of Unit staff, the livestreaming of the armed standoff via body cam and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories on broadcast legacy media. And if you thought the idea of Think Tank seemed far-fetched, just recall the moment in 2021 when anti-vaccine campaigners filmed themselves “serving legal papers” to hospital staff alleging “crimes against humanity” at the height of the Covid pandemic.
Sum it up in one sentence?
What if Doctor Who did another episode like Love and Monsters, but without the terrible ending.
Life aboard the Tardis
We only got three Tardis moments, with Belinda (Varada Sethu) and the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) using the vortex indicator in 2007, Ruby and the Doctor having their own encounter with the Shreek – dialogue indicated that happened directly after last year’s The Devil’s Chord – and the Doctor telling off Clark in the Tardis at some unspecified point between the two.
Fear factor
Someone who was definitely feeling the fear factor was the Vlinx, who hilariously couldn’t abandon its post on the Unit bridge fast enough. The Shreek were monster of the week, and, rather like the Dregs in Orphan 55, worked better in the shadows and in brief shots than out in the open. The reveal that, at least at one point, they actually were just men in hoax rubber suits felt like yet more meta-commentary on the production of the show. But all the real monsters in this episode were human.
Mysteries and questions
Surely “the guv’nor” is not going to turn out to be the recurring Anita Dobson’s villain character name?
Deeper into the vortex
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It was good to see the London Eye being used as a tourist attraction again on New Year’s Eve in 2007. Public confidence must have recovered after it was discovered to be the Auton transmitter in Rose, set in March 2005.
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The first time we saw the Doctor operate the Tardis with a snap of his fingers was in 2008 episode Forest of the Dead, when David Tennant’s 10th Doctor tries it after having been told by River Song that her Doctor in the future could open the doors that way.
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Among the aliens Clark lists as Unit hoaxes are the Sycorax, who appeared in David Tennant’s debut The Christmas Invasion, and “yetis in the underground”, a reference to the partially missing 1968 Patrick Troughton story The Web of Fear, which first introduced us to the character of Kate’s dad, who then had the rank of Col Lethbridge-Stewart.
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We can expect to see Unit again later in the year, as Redgrave, Alexander Devrient and Ruth Madeley are all reprising their roles in spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea.
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This is the second time in a fortnight that a main character has been told their name is “ridiculous”, as Clark used the word to belittle Ruby after we’d seen Belinda dismiss the Doctor’s chosen moniker during Lux the same way.
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Think Tank was the name of the scientific institute developing a giant robot and infiltrated by conspiracy-minded scientists during Tom Baker’s 1974 debut Robot.
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If you missed it, earlier this week we pondered whether the whole enterprise might be on its last legs …
Next time
Lagos! A huge spider! The Story and the Engine is the episode that, during the Q&A section at the premiere event for The Robot Revolution, Gatwa said he was most looking forward to people seeing. See you then!
