Doctor Who 12x10 Recap: “The Timeless Children” (Who Do You Think You Are?) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“The Timeless Children”

Original Airdate: March 1, 2020

The Master takes the Doctor through the boundary. Ashad calls him and the Master offers Gallifrey to the Cybermen. While he waits for them to arrive, he traps the Doctor in a paralysis field so he can force her to explore the Time Lords’ Matrix, a database that housed all of the lives, memories, and experiences of every Time Lord.

We learn how the Time Lords came to be. Long ago a woman named Tecteun, who was part of the indigenous race of Gallifrey, discovered space travel. In her exploration, she came across an interdimensional gateway and an abandoned child beneath it. After returning to Gallifrey with her adopted daughter, Tecteun learned the child could regenerate. She studied the child for decades and through several of the child’s regenerations, until she was able to distill a piece of genetic code related to regeneration. Tecteun spliced that code into herself, thereby giving her the power of regeneration too.

As Gallifrey grew, select and high-ranking Gallifreyans were given the ability to regenerate, which could be passed down as a family legacy and symbol of status. They renamed themselves Time Lords because they were pompous jerks. When the Doctor demands to know what happened to the so-called “timeless child,” the Master tells her: she is the Timeless Child. Every Time Lord contains a piece of her genetic code. She’s the reason the Time Lords exist at all.

Obviously, the Doctor doesn’t believe any of this, though the Master swears it’s the truth. He even explains that his anger toward her was always because she acted as though she was special. He’s enraged to find out she really is. The Doctor protests that she remembers her childhood but the Master tells her those memories are real; they just aren’t memories of her very first life. The Matrix shows one of the Doctor’s hidden lives, where she is recruited into “The Division,” which sent her on missions and then wiped her memories at the end. So Branden’s story from the last episode is an amalgamation of the Doctor’s experiences being found as the Timeless Child and having her memories taken when she’d finished a mission.

MASTER PLAN

The Cybermen’s ship arrives above Ko Sharmus’ planet and a few death squads are sent to the surface to kill Ryan, Ethan, and Ko Sharmus. On the ship, the humans, including Graham and Yaz, escape through a vent and then disguise themselves in Cybersuits to avoid detection. They arrive on the planet just in time to save Ethan from being executed. Then the Cybermen’s ship passes through the boundary to Gallifrey.

In between toying with the Doctor, the Master negotiates with Ashad. The latter shows off a “death particle,” which the Cyberium has determined should be used to destroy all organic matter. Even the new Cybermen have been upgraded so they don’t have any organic matter left. But the Master has a better idea for how to create the master race. It starts by shrinking Ashad, who still has the now miniature death particle, and convincing the Cyberium to take him (the Master) as its new host.

With that power, the Master unveils his final plan to the Doctor. He kept the bodies of all of the Time Lords he murdered and has now put them into Cyberman armor. In walk the Cybermasters, who can regenerate immediately after being killed. In the Matrix, the Doctor sees Ruth and wonders if Ruth is a life that was erased from her memory. Ruth doesn’t have those answers but she does encourage the Doctor to embrace all of herself, even the parts she can’t recall. By sending memories of all of her lives into the Matrix, the Doctor is able to free herself. The Fam finds her in the Citadel. They’ve concocted a plan to blow up the Cybermen’s ship. When they tell her about the death particle, the Doctor decides to use it to wipe out the Cybermasters.

HARD CHOICES

The Doctor finds the miniaturized Ashad on the ship. Everyone makes a run for it when the explosives accidentally start counting down. The Doctor herds them into a TARDIS and explains she has to stay behind to use the death particle. The Fam is upset but there is no other choice. “Live great lives,” she tells them in parting. Back in the Matrix chamber, the Doctor and the Master face off. She feels stronger with the knowledge about her past but he’s tricked her again. He led her to the death particle so she’d have to be the one to use it. Despite the Master’s goading, the Doctor lowers the trigger.

Then in walks Ko Sharmus, who has followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS. He was part of the unit that sent the Cyberium back in time to avoid humanity’s extinction, so now he wants to finish what he started. He takes the trigger from the Doctor and tells her to run. Even though he’s shot multiple times, he still manages to activate the death particle and the Doctor escapes in another TARDIS.

The TARDIS with the humans arrives safely on Earth in the 21st century. The TARDIS with the Doctor takes her to her own ship, which welcomes her home. As she sits silently for a moment, taking in all that has happened, three Judoon suddenly appear. They transport the Doctor, who is still a fugitive to them, to a maximum-security prison to serve a life sentence.

Final Thoughts:

• I’m not sure how to react to the Timeless Child news. It’s a significant re-write to Whovian history and that needs to marinate for a while before I judge it. There’s a lot of potential to do fun, cool storylines with it, like having Ruth or other versions of the Doctor show up. But I’m not sure how confident I am that Chibnall can pull that off long-term. This story arc wasn’t the best of Doctor Who’s run. It didn’t have the suspense or mystery of “Bad Wolf,” “Torchwood,” “River Song,” or even “the hybrid.” But I loved the surprise reveal of Ruth’s identity so maybe there’s hope. 
• If the Timeless Child thing is true, the Doctor just kept calling herself “the Doctor” throughout her life? That must be the case because Ruth referred to herself as “the Doctor.”
• Also, are we to suppose that the Doctor didn’t actually need a new regeneration cycle at the end of Eleven’s run? Clearly, they’ve regenerated way more times than 12. Perhaps instead of forcing them to start life again as a child with no memories of their past, the Time Lords were gracious for once and let the Doctor regenerate more without taking their memories. 
• I very much expect to see several GIF sets paralleling Thirteen’s choice not to use the death particle with Nine’s decision not to wipe out Earth in order to destroy the Daleks. No matter how many lives the Doctor has lived, they’re still the same person inside. 
• All season I have noted that the companions had very little effect on the plot of each episode. That’s still mostly true in this episode, though they did help blow up the Cybermen’s ship. But their best moment all season is when Graham touchingly tells Yaz he is so impressed with her, calling her the best person he’s ever met. She responds with a Yorkshire “love letter” by telling him he’s not so bad either. 

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Doctor Who 12x09 Recap: “The Ascension of the Cybermen” (They Always Come Back) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“The Ascension of the Cybermen”

Original Airdate: February 23, 2020

On a nice country lane, a man finds an abandoned baby in a basket and brings it home. He and his wife adopt the baby boy, Brendan, and they make a very happy family together. One day Brendan gets sick but recovers. When he’s grown up, he becomes a policeman because he wants to make a difference. While chasing a thief, he’s shot and falls off of a cliff but is miraculously uninjured. After serving many years in the force, Brendan retires and is given a clock as a memento. His father and first chief are waiting for him outside, somehow the same age as before. They take Brendan into a back room, thank him for his service, and forcibly remove his memories.

The Doctor and the Fam arrive at the coordinates they got from Shelley in last week’s episode. At this point in time, the Cybermen have nearly wiped out all of humanity and themselves. This settlement only has seven humans left. When the Cybermen’s ships appear in the sky, the Doctor, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham quickly set up tech meant to repel the relentless machines. But they are taken by surprise when Cyber Drones (a.k.a. Cybermen heads) fly in and blast their machinery and some of the humans. With nothing to help her, the Doctor sends the last few humans to their escape ship and insists the Fam accompany them, which they, reluctantly, do.

However, Ashad and his Cybermen attack the companions, and Ryan is separated from the other two, who make it aboard the escape ship. It takes off, leaving him, the Doctor, and Ethan behind. After lobbing a grenade at Ashad to create a diversion, this trio steals a Cyberfighter and takes off after the refugee ship. The plan is to cross a boundary called Ko Sharmus that will send them somewhere else in the universe where the Cybermen can’t follow. Ethan deftly flies the Doctor and Ryan there. Ashad contacts them to threaten not only to wipe out humanity but everything else as well. Although he was initially rejected by the Cybermen, he now believes he was chosen to revive the entire race.

FINDING REFUGE

The humans’ ship is falling apart and ends up dead in space surrounded by equally dead Cybermen. Yaz and Graham convince the others to use any remaining power to propel them into the docking station of a nearby Cyberman ship. Amazingly, this works! Aboard the Cyberman ship, Graham and Ravio have a look around and discover thousands of dormant Cybermen warriors waiting to be activated. Soon, Ashad and his Cybermen board the ship as well and begin activating the warriors.

The Doctor makes contact with Ko Sharmus, which turns out to be a person. He fought in the Cyber War and escaped an internment camp. Along with others, he built a shelter and discovered the boundary that takes them elsewhere in the universe. Everyone else has gone through but he waited in case there were other humans still alive and in need of guidance. He shows the Doctor the boundary, which looks like a purple portal.

With the Cybermen en route to kill them, Yaz, Graham, and the other humans weigh their options. Taking a ship of Cybermen to Ko Sharmus isn’t a great idea but neither is landing anywhere else or allowing the warriors to remain active. They watch Ashad attack one of the warriors, causing it to scream. Yaz sends a message to Ko Sharmus to alert the Doctor to the situation. The Doctor tells them to leave the ship but they have no way to do that; they’re completely trapped and the Cybermen have breached the bridge.

The portal flashes suddenly and Gallifrey is visible on the other side. Then the Master pops through and lands in front of the Doctor. That can only be bad.

Final Thoughts:

• Without seeing next week’s episode I can’t say for sure but my instinct is this one would’ve been stronger had the two been combined into one, longer episode. So much here was setup and delaying the real plot. 
• I also wonder if this entire season would be better if it was condensed only to "Spyfall," "Fugitive of the Judoon," "The Haunting of Villa Diodati," this episode, and next week’s. Those are the real meat and all that feels worth watching. Just like I said in series 11, you could skip or watch the other episodes in any order and it wouldn’t matter. I know Chris Chibnall can do tight, effective storytelling but I’m not seeing that in his stint as Doctor Who’s showrunner. Maybe he needs fewer episodes that are a bit longer?
• Shame on the BBC publicity department for totally spoiling the Master’s return with images of him against the purple background of the portal. 
• What was Brendan’s story telling us? Did I miss something?
• An ongoing theme this series is having a lot of new characters in an episode and never using their names! I swear Ethan’s name was said once, maybe twice. I still don’t know the names for any other human refugee except Ravio.

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Doctor Who 12x08 Recap: “The Haunting of Villa Diodati” (Remember Jack’s Warning) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“The Haunting of Villa Diodati”

Original Airdate: February 16, 2020

It’s Lake Geneva in 1816 and it’s a great night in literary history. Tonight, Lord Byron will challenge Percy and Mary Shelley to write a story and Mary will write Frankenstein. But at the moment, Percy isn’t around and Byron is too busy flirting with both Mary and Ms. Claire Clairmont. A storm rages outside, adding theatrics to Byron’s scary storytime until the Doctor, Graham, Ryan, and Yaz knock on the door. Now it’s a real party. Under strict rules not to mention Frankenstein or sleep with Byron, the Fam enjoys a period adventure that’s about to be more than they signed up for.

Graham finds himself going in circles while searching for the bathroom. Whenever the lightning flashes outside, ghostly figures appear in the house. A skeletal hand bursts from a fallen painting and scuttles along the floor. It bursts into the room just as Dr. Polidori, who is having terrible insomnia, is challenging Ryan to a duel. After destroying the hand, the Doctor determines it’s human, leading Polidori to accuse Byron of bringing evil into the house. He does have a skeleton in his chambers, after all, and that skeleton is missing both hands. The Doctor asks after Percy and learns he started having visions of ghosts around the time the storm came.

Believing Percy to be holed up in his chateau nearby, Yaz, Ryan, and Mary decide to visit him, but they get caught going in circles on the stairs. In fact, everyone in the house is trapped in a loop wherever they are and are unable to leave. Outside, something or someone is conducting electricity near the lake. Polidori arises from sleep in a trance and walks out of the room by going straight through a wall. He reappears moments later upstairs in Byron’s room, where the Doctor determines he must be dreaming and therefore unaware of the barriers the rest of them see, such as the walls.

The entire house is like a perception filter. If you can see through it, you’ll find walls aren’t actually there and doors are hidden behind them. Mary is able to find a door to lead them off the stairs and to her infant son’s room. But baby William isn’t in his crib. Instead, there’s only a skull and a hand. Polidori awakes suddenly, unaware of what’s been happening. No one can leave the house and the Doctor believes whatever is outside conducting electricity is causing the storm and the oddities in the house. It’s a time traveler and just then it makes it inside. When fully formed, we see it’s a Cyberman.

THE POST-MODERN PROMETHEUS

This is the “lone Cyberman” from Jack Harkness’ warning. The Cyberman is unfinished but still deadly and is searching for “the guardian.” The Doctor follows after it while telling the others to stay put. Although the Cyberman kills a maid hiding baby William, it spares the baby’s life. The Doctor and the Cyberman fight, with the latter recharging via lightning. He is looking for a substance called Cyberium and seems familiar with Percy Shelley’s writings. Speaking of Percy, he’s discovered in the basement looking ill and disheveled.

Shelley has been trying to protect the Cyberium, which was found by chance in the lake. It immediately bonded to him, making him invisible in the house and giving him the ability to change perceptions in the house. He’s been using the latter to keep the Cyberman at bay while writing down all of the symbols and numbers that have been flooding his mind. The Doctor reads Shelley’s mind to learn the Cyberium is used to wage a massive war in the future. To protect the future, someone (maybe Jack?) sent it back in time but the Cybermen have followed it. The Doctor doesn’t see any way to get the Cyberium out of Shelley without the Cyberman’s help but her companions wonder whether, given what Jack said about the Cybermen, letting Shelley die is necessary. Taken aback, the Doctor reminds them that changes in the past may affect whether they exist in the future.

The time for debate ends when the Cyberman appears, ready to kill Shelley to get the Cyberium. Mary attempts to appeal to his soul and although she learns his name, Ashad, he viciously recounts murdering his family after joining the Cybermen. He has no mercy for Shelley so the Doctor tricks Shelley’s mind into thinking he’s dead, forcing the Cyberium to exit his body. The substance bonds with the Doctor instead but Ashad threatens to burn Earth to ash to get it from her. Reasoning that the Cybermen may be inevitable, the Doctor gives up the Cyberium.

Knowing she’s messed up by giving away the substance, the Doctor resolves to use the symbols and numbers Shelley scribbled down to fight the Cybermen in the future. She tries to persuade the fam to stay behind in their own time but they’re sticking with her.

Final Thoughts:

• I wasn’t really into this episode until the Cyberman reveal and then it was far more interesting. I do wish the mysterious time traveler had been another surprise cameo, even Jack Harkness back yet again, but I’ll take a half-finished Cyberman.
• A mangled Cyberman being the new inspiration for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is pretty cool.
• One of the ghostly maids looked a lot like Eve Myles a.k.a. Gwenith Cooper from Doctor Who’s “The Unquiet Dead” and Gwen Cooper from Torchwood.

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Doctor Who 12x07 Recap: “Can You Hear Me?” (Nightmare Fuel) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“Can You Hear Me?”

Original Airdate: February 9, 2020

The Doctor lands back on Earth for the Fam to have some time to reconnect with friends and family. Impatient to meet up with the trio the next day, the Doctor decides to jump ahead but is interrupted by a strange noise echoing from Aleppo. Back in 14th Century Syria, a woman named Tahira warned others about creatures that come at night. Everyone dismissed her claims but at nightfall, she was proven right. Beasts with long claws attacked everyone except Tahira. The Doctor tries to get a read on the situation and even encounters one of the beasts, though they aren’t familiar to her.

Just as it seems that this episode may be light on companions, each of them experiences something strange. Graham has weird visions of a woman trapped and two planets colliding. Ryan’s friend, Tibo, describes a recurring nightmare of a man watching him, even when he’s awake. When Ryan stays the night, he witnesses a strange man detaching his fingers and attaching them to Tibo before disappearing along with Tibo. Yaz sees the same man in her flat after waking from a nightmare.

All three companions call the Doctor about these experiences so she grabs Tahira and heads back to Earth. Since the monsters from Aleppo don’t exist, at least according to the TARDIS, the best option to solve this mystery is plugging Graham into the TARDIS’ telepathic circuit. This way, the Doctor can lock onto a location for the planets from his vision. That’s how they end up in deep space on a platform monitoring the collision of two planets. Zooming in, the Doctor sees an orb caught between the planets that’s barely keeping them apart. Graham realizes the woman from his vision is trapped in that orb, which leads the Doctor to deduce that the orb is a prison.

BORED IMMORTALS

Tahira wanders off while the others are talking and sees one of the beasts from Aleppo on the platform. The man everyone has seen is also there. He is responsible for creating Tahira’s beasts and everyone’s fears. Detaching his fingers again, he puts each person into a dream state and handcuffs them. Yaz dreams of something from her past, Ryan sees the Earth burning, and Graham’s cancer returns and Grace blames him for her death. The Doctor, meanwhile, is oblivious as she solves the prison puzzle. Just as she’s breaking the lock, the mysterious man appears to her. He is Zellin, a mythological god who is extracting nightmares from across time on Earth and feeding them to the prisoner.

Now that prisoner is freed... just as Zellin planned. He lured the Doctor there knowing she could break the lock. The prisoner is Zellin’s immortal partner, Rakaya. Together they messed around with the people of the two colliding planets to see which civilization would be destroyed first. When the people figured out the game, they trapped Rakaya between their planets. Since then, Zellin has been feeding her nightmares to keep her strong. After putting the Doctor into her own nightmare of the Timeless Child, the two gods head to Earth to spend eternity feeding off of fearful humans.

But the Doctor is smarter than they thought. She wakes herself up, undoes her own restraints, and frees the others. Using the beasts Zellin made from Tahira’s fears, the Doctor lures the gods back to Aleppo. With Tahira demonstrating mastery over the beasts and her fears, the gods are imprisoned together in the orb between the two colliding planets, with a beast there to scare them for eternity.

The Fam prepares to leave Earth once more. Ryan encourages Tibo to join a support group and Graham confesses to the Doctor about his worry his cancer will return. Yaz recalls three years ago how she had run away from home only to be found by a kind policewoman thanks to her sister. The officer convinced Yaz to keep trying because things get better, even placing a wager that in three years Yaz will feel that way. Knowing the woman was right, Yaz visits her to hand over the winning amount. But while she may feel content with life on the TARDIS, Ryan is starting to wonder how long they can keep growing older while their friends and family live their lives without them.

Final Thoughts:

• At the start of the episode, I thought we were in for a story filled with horror and monsters of the week. Instead, the plot was more wandering and philosophical as it tried to tie mental illness and horror together in ways that didn’t quite work. 
• That’s not to say Zellin and his floating fingers that he sticks in your ear to give you nightmares and steal your fear wasn’t scary. Because it WAS.
• I’m almost certain Rakaya’s name was never said in this episode (IMDb lists the character). Was a scene left on the cutting room floor where Zellin or the Doctor names her?
• What does Graham have to do to get a dang hug?
• Ryan’s worries about the sustainability of traveling with the Doctor confirm a growing worry I have that we may see one or more companions depart after series 12. The show isn’t making very good use of them this season anyway.

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Doctor Who 12x06 Recap: “Praxeus” (One Word: Plastics) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“Praxeus”

Original Airdate: February 2, 2020

Earth is in a bit of disarray. A British astronaut, Adam, crash lands in his space capsule and goes missing. A submarine has also disappeared suddenly. In Peru, a beautiful river is overflowing with plastic but travelers Jamilla and Gabriella must camp there overnight. Crows attack Jamilla in the night and she’s gone in the morning, but Ryan is there to help Gabriella sort through the confusion. He tells her birds are falling out of the sky everywhere and collects one of them to take to the Doctor. They track a distress signal online to an abandoned hospital nearby and find Jamilla’s body. She has strange scales on the side of her face, which Ryan, stupidly, touches. Jamilla starts convulsing, then disintegrates completely.

In Hong Kong, Jake, a police officer on leave, arrives at a warehouse. This is the location that Adam supposedly messaged him asking for his help. Graham and Yaz help Jake inside and they find Adam hooked up to a machine. He tells them to leave just before masked creatures burst in and start shooting. Jake may be an ex-cop but he’s still good with a gun so he’s able to get everyone out safely. Depending on which one you ask, Adam and Jake may or may not still be married as well.

The Doctor gathers them into the TARDIS. She has already been to Madagascar, where she found a survivor from the missing submarine who also disintegrated before her eyes. They’re all heading back there but Yaz wants to stay behind to find an important-looking piece of alien tech. Gabriella volunteers to go with her. They find the tech but have to hide when one of the creatures stumbles in and then teleports away. The two women decide to follow it.

PROBLEM AND SOLUTION

At a lab in Madagascar, Suki and Aramu do their best to help the Doctor figure out what is attacking Earth and why. While everyone else goes inside the lab to analyze Adam’s deteriorating state, Aramu stays outside to monitor a flock of birds. Bad idea, Aramu. Adam is infected with an alien pathogen and the same scales have started forming on his neck. Suki believes they can reverse engineer a cure using Adam and the dead bird Ryan brought him. That bird is full of plastic, which the Doctor believes is the source of the alien bacteria. Because humans have polluted the planet with so much plastic, there are microplastics in our bodies from the air, food, and water. That means the bacteria can attack us just as easily as it attacks birds who eat plastic. Outside, Aramu is predictably killed by the birds.

Yaz radios in to tell the Doctor what she and Gabriella have discovered, including that the alien creatures are transmitting to Madagascar. And now at Suki’s over-equipped lab and eagerness make sense: she’s working with the aliens. They call the pathogen Praxeus, she says, and “it knows you’re on to it.” Then she teleports away. Birds burst into the lab but everyone is able to escape into the TARDIS with the samples needed to make a potential cure. Adam volunteers to let the Doctor test it on him.

While exploring what they think is an alien planet, Yaz takes off the mask of one of the dead creatures. The Doctor, who arrives shortly after, says the aliens are humanoid in appearance but not actually humans. They are, however, also infected with Praxeus so they’ve most likely come to Earth to try to find a cure for their own race. Suki confirms that’s correct. And they aren’t on another planet; they’re deep below the Indian Ocean. The creatures in the masks were Suki’s crew. They all came to Earth to use it as a lab because we have so much plastic here. It was the perfect petri dish for studying Praxeus.

But things went awry almost immediately. Their ship crashed, causing Adam’s capsule to crash too and the submarine to go haywire. Samples of Praxeus leaked out of the ship and spread into the ocean and the layer of plastic on it. Suki is hopeful now, though, because they have a cure but the Doctor doesn’t know if it works on humans, much less any other species. And she’s right and wrong. Suki dies a moment later but Adam comes in looking much better. The antidote is ready and they can use Suki’s ship to discharge it all over the Earth’s atmosphere thereby killing Praxeus everywhere on the planet.

It’s a perfect plan, until the autopilot fails. The Doctor leaves their chances to a wing and a prayer but Jake takes more direct action and stays behind to fly the ship. Having always felt inferior to his astronaut husband, Jake feels this is the right thing to do. He successfully sends the antidote across Earth even as the ship breaks apart in the process. A millisecond before he’s going to die, the Doctor swoops him into the TARDIS. All is well.

Final Thoughts:

• It’s either feast or famine in series 12. Last week’s episode was the best of Chibnall’s Doctor Who. This week, we returned to the “performative wokeness” genre that’s made up most of his era. It had a light message about the evils of pollution, never addressed the actual issue of corporations being the ones who dump most of the plastic pollution into the oceans, and wrapped up things very neatly at the end. Mediocre and forgettable. 
• An episode like this is why I worry that all of the potential from “Fugitive of the Judoon” may be completely squandered in the end.

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Doctor Who 12x05 Recap: “Fugitive of the Judoon” (Are You the Doctor?) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“Fugitive of the Judoon”

Original Airdate: January 26, 2020

Ruth is just a happy, super friendly tour guide in Gloucester. It’s her birthday. Everything is lovely. Except not so much. High above Earth, the Judoon are lying in wait. They’re trigger-happy, intergalactic police for hire who don’t care about collateral damage or civilian casualties as long as they fulfill their contract. And they’re looking for someone on Earth.

In the TARDIS, the Fam question the Doctor about her unusually odd behavior as of late. She’s been going to Gallifrey on her own. She’s been feverishly searching for the Master. The Fam have been excluded from all of this because they “ask too many questions,” though Graham reminds her they do it because they care about her. The family meeting is interrupted by the Judoon’s warning signal as they beam down to Earth, where they begin scanning people to root out the fugitive.

Lee, Ruth’s husband, picks up Ruth’s birthday cake and mutters something disparaging about “humans” under his breath, which means he definitely isn’t one. Upon seeing the Judoon, he hurries home. Just as the Judoon are going to fire a dangerous weapon at Lee and Ruth’s flat, the Doctor intervenes and convinces them to let her arbitrate. They give her five minutes.

Ruth immediately lets the Doctor into the flat but both humans register as, well, human, which is puzzling. A search of the flat uncovers an alien box that Lee recognizes and Ruth doesn’t. Lee convinces them to make a run for it while he deals with the Judoon. He surrenders to them but someone new is with the Judoon, a Commander Gat. She’s tracked him using the broken service medal inside the box. Although Lee is not the fugitive, Gat kills him.

THE MOST CHARMING MAN IN THE UNIVERSE

Around this time is when the Doctor, Ryan, and Yaz realize Graham isn’t with them anymore (and they really don’t seem worried about that). In fact, he’s been beamed aboard some other ship and a very familiar voice is flirting with him over the intercom. It’s Captain Jack Harkness! “You missed me, right?” he says and I really, really did. He immediately kisses Graham because he thinks he’s the Doctor. “Loving the grey at the temple. Kinda distinguished. And still sexy.” Graham is confused and I am so, so happy.

Of course, Graham quickly corrects Jack, who is thrilled to learn the Doctor is now female. He’s piloting a stolen ship and trying to scoop the Doctor up to give her a message, but he ends up beaming aboard Ryan and Yaz instead. Now he has three companions and still no Doctor. To make things worse, the owners of his ship want it back and they’re using nanogenes to get rid of Jack. Before he disappears, he tells the trio his message for the Doctor: Beware the lone Cyberman and don’t give it what it wants, no matter the cost. Something has been sent back in time that could revive the empire of the Cybermen. Jack promises to see the Doctor again (yay!) and sends the companions back to Earth before he disappears.

THE LOOKING GLASS

Alone with the Doctor, Ruth receives a last text from Lee, which she conceals. The Judoon surround them and in a snap, Ruth takes out the squad with insane fighting skills. She’s the fugitive. She’s also just as stunned as I am about what happened. The Doctor believes another identity is concealed in Ruth and Lee’s text triggered it. They decide to drive to the lighthouse where Ruth grew up. On the wall is a button that says, “Break the glass,” which was in Lee’s text. Ruth does and energy floods into her. The Doctor scans the graves of Ruth’s parents and finds a TARDIS buried there instead. Ruth walks up behind her, now in an awesome blue suit with a massive gun in her hands. She re-introduces herself. “I’m the Doctor.” OMG?!?

They teleport into Ruth’s TARDIS, which is in the retro style of the First Doctor (and also Clara Oswald’s TARDIS, just sayin’). Ruth prepares for Gat’s arrival but the Doctor is still super confused. Neither woman believes the other is them. “And how did I end up like that? All rainbows and trousers that don’t reach?” Ruth cracks. She believes the Doctor is in her future, but the Doctor has no memory of being Ruth. The sonic screwdriver confirms they’re the same person, though. Ruth used the Chameleon Arch to disguise herself as a human with Lee as her protector. Gat is her former boss and she’s pissed.

The Judoon pull the TARDIS aboard their ship and Ruth confronts Gat, who is ready to kill her. Against Ruth’s instructions, the Doctor reveals her own identity, which causes confusion among the Judoon and fear in Gat. The latter is also a Time Lord, which means the orders to hunt down the Doctor are from the past because, once again, Gallifrey is destroyed. The Doctor and Gat even mind meld so she can prove it. But Gat has her orders from a not-yet-identified contractee and shoots Ruth’s gun. It backfires and kills her, which was Ruth’s plan. She and the Doctor escape the Judoon, who still have an outstanding contract to bring in the Doctor so we haven’t seen the last of them.

Ruth drops the Doctor near her own TARDIS and they each acknowledge that one of them must be wrong about being the Doctor. Haunted yet again by unanswered questions, the Doctor reconnects with the Fam. They tell her Jack’s message about the Cybermen. She tells them about Ruth. Something massive is coming for her, the Doctor says, and she tries to keep the Fam out of it: “You don’t know me. Not even a little bit.”

But they protest. “You’re the Doctor,” Ryan says. “Whoever you were in the past or are in the future, we know who you are right now.”

“The best person we know,” Graham adds.

They remind her they’re family and they want to stay with her for whatever is coming.

Final Thoughts:

• This is the best episode of Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who. Hands down, no contest. There were some very affecting episodes in series 11 and some amazing moments but no episode has been as entertaining and surprising the entire time as this one. No episode has felt so Whovian. Any lingering doubts I’ve been having are gone. If this is the way series 11 keeps up, it’s going to be incredible. This was such a huge step up from the standalone, monster-of-the-week episodes that have mostly made up series 10 and 11. More like this in the future, please!
• Captain Jack Harkness is back!!! I am SO HAPPY! Within two minutes I was convinced that he needs to be brought on full time to this show. While I’ll never stop being bitter than he and the Twelfth Doctor never met and that he was left out of the 50th Anniversary episode, this was a fabulous comeback. 
• Here’s the only downside to Jack’s return: it made it even more clear that Chibnall and his writers don’t know what to do with the three current companions. They once again had little to no effect on the plot. Jack had a bigger role in the episode and he didn’t even meet the Doctor. I love Ryan, Yaz, and Graham but honestly, if series 13 was the Doctor and Jack in the TARDIS together, I would be ecstatic.
• I really, really thought maybe there was a connection to Clara Oswald that was going to come out of this episode. She is out there somewhere with a TARDIS after all, although it’s stuck looking like a 1950s diner on the outside and retro on the inside. 
• Graham: “This ain’t your ship?” Jack: “You think I’d choose this look? It doesn’t even have a bar!”
• “Doesn’t time fly when you don’t have all the answers?”
• Jack, about the companions: “Seriously? Three of you? I had a dream about this once.”
• Jack: “Oh, she likes them mouthy then, huh?” Ryan: “Yeah, one up from cheesy.”
• Ruth: “Is there even a word for how dumb you are?” The Doctor: “Doctor.”

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Doctor Who 12x04 Recap: “Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror” (Thomas Edison is a Bad Guy but not THE Bad Guy) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror”

Original Airdate: January 19, 2020

At Niagara Falls, Nikola Tesla shows off his newest inventions to a group of investors who, though awed, are put off by his request for $50,000. It doesn’t help his pitch that Tesla has recently said he received contact from Mars. And then one of his workers turns up dead. So it’s not the best investment pitch. While investigating how the worker died, Tesla discovers there are parts of his machine missing and a strange alien orb floating around his generator. When he hears more strange noises, he pockets the orb, grabs his assistant Dorothy, and hides.

Right about then is when the Doctor bursts in. She’s been tracking a strange energy signal. One of Tesla’s investors is shot dead by an unknown creature in a cloak. The Doctor, Tesla, and Dorothy escape to a night train where the rest of the Fam is waiting. But the creature has followed them. They’re just able to escape and the Doctor glimpses a very human-looking hand under its cloak and steals the attacker’s gun (a Silurian blaster). The alien is actually Tesla’s dead employee, now with glowing red eyes and energy powers. 

Knowing that Tesla found something, the Doctor tries to convince him to hand over the orb but he refuses. So Team TARDIS has to stick around with the inventor for a while. Outside his lab in New York, Tesla deals with protestors, stirred up by rival Thomas Edison, who think his inventions are dangerous. He gives the Doctor the orb after all and she identifies it as an Orb of Thassa, a species all about invention. The orb is supposed to spread information but it’s been repurposed somehow. While puzzling over it, the Doctor and Tesla bond because they’re both unusual inventors believing in something beyond Earth. Unfortunately, Tesla’s ambitions are stymied by a lack of investors and Edison’s constant smear campaign.

TESLA OR THE WORLD

The Doctor’s working theory is Edison is somehow behind the attacks on Tesla, so she goes to visit the man himself. He’s intrigued by the blaster but seems innocent of cooperating with aliens to beat Tesla. The same cloaked figure from the train kills everyone in Edison’s lab with a burst of energy. It then possesses one of Tesla’s employees and tries to attack the Doctor, Edison, and the others. As they run out, the Doctor realizes that alien is assuming the form of dead people to conceal its true self from them. Meanwhile, Yaz and Tesla connect wires to the orb and discover it is scanning all around them.

Two of the aliens take Dorothy hostage to force Tesla to cooperate. He and Yaz are teleported to a ship that’s hovering cloaked above New York. There they meet the Queen of the Skithra, a race that takes technology and resources from other races. Now they want Tesla to repair their ship and build them new weapons. Initially, he seems compliant until Yaz convinces him to resist. This act nearly gets Yaz killed but thankfully the Doctor has been busy. Realizing the orb was sent to specifically find Tesla, the Doctor uses it to locate the Skithra ship. Then she builds a transporter to get her there and bring Yaz and Tesla back.

So the Doctor interrupts Yaz’s execution but now must stall for time as the transporter recharges. Luckily, the Doctor is really good at talking and distracting. She manages to get the three of them to Wardenclyffe Tower, Tesla’s true lab. But the Skithra aren’t done yet. Either they get Tesla or they kill everyone on Earth. He’s ready to give himself up but the Doctor thinks they can fight. Tesla explains that Wardenclyffe Tower is essentially WiFi and that sparks a thought in the Doctor. They can use the tower to zap the Skithra ship with enough energy to send them away.

SAVED BY WIFI

Everyone prepares for this plan but there’s one major issue: in order for the TARDIS to send enough energy through the tower, it has to lower its shields, which are the only thing keeping the Skithra from killing them all. They all agree to fight long enough to kill the Skithra queen on the ship, knowing the others will flee. But when the aliens burst in, they don’t attack and the queen isn’t on the ship. She’s right there in the lab. The Doctor tricks her into taking the transporter from earlier, thereby sending her back to the ship after all. Tesla zaps the ship and all of the Skithra are teleported back before the ship blasts off into space.

After saving the world together, Edison tries to make amends by inviting Tesla to come work for him again. But Tesla, despite knowing his inventions will likely bankrupt him, would rather keep working independently. Yaz is disappointed that Tesla’s heroics won’t change his future, which is to die penniless and largely forgotten.

Final Thoughts:

• This was a more familiar Doctor Who episode with somewhat silly aliens, a historical place and people, and a lot of technobabble to save the day. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of being a little bit bored the whole time. There’s an emotional component missing and I can’t quite put my finger on it. It is very telling that once again, the companions don’t really have anything to do, especially once Dorothy, Tesla, and Edison all join the adventure. 
• There is some commentary in this episode about the treatment of immigrants and the power of innovation over stealing others’ ideas but it’s very unexplored. Mining these issues more deeply might have made for a richer plot.
• “The internal dimensions transcend the external” is Tesla’s way of saying, “bigger on the inside.”

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Doctor Who 12x03 Recap: “Orphan 55” (Planet of the Dregs) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“Orphan 55”

Original Airdate: January 12, 2020

After adventuring around for a while, the Fam needs a vacation. Graham finds a coupon for a spa and before they know it, they’re transported to Tranquility Spa. While each of them tries to enjoy themselves, there is, of course, trouble a-brewing. Ryan contracts a virus from a vending machine, which the Doctor is easily able to cure him of, but then an alert sounds asking guests to move to their muster stations. Still recovering, Ryan stays behind and meets Bella. When they see security sweeping in, they decide to follow.

Suspicious about the security measures, the Doctor flashes the psychic paper to get into a linen cupboard that is actually the security base. She tells Kane, the woman in charge, that more viruses are in the system, including what they need to safely teleport the guests back home. That’s a pretty big problem because something bigger and worse than a virus is attacking the guests. The Doctor tells all guests to come to the linen cupboard but Ryan and Bella are still investigating on their own. They see a guest attacked by what we soon learn are the locals, known as the Dregs.

Security cameras go offline as the Dregs take out guest after guest. The Doctor builds a new line of defense just in time to save Bella and Ryan but one guest is alive and missing: Benni, a sweet old man who was about to propose to his longtime partner, Vilma, when Yaz accidentally interrupted. The spa is actually a massive dome on an uninhabitable planet and someone has hacked the hotel to let the Dregs in. Benni is outside the hotel’s wall where there is no breathable air and is only still alive because of his oxygen tank.

A ROCK AND A MURDEROUS ALIEN

Convinced to go after him, Kane distributes small oxygen tanks and breathing strips to everyone still alive. En route to Benni’s position in a security truck, the Doctor asks more questions about the planet and learns it’s Orphan 55, a radiation planet not at all suited to a vacation. Orphan planets are so-called because when they could no longer sustain life, the rich inhabitants left and everyone else either died or was killed. But the Dregs did survive because they’ve adapted to their environment. And Tranquility Spa isn’t just a destination spot. It’s Kane’s first step in terraforming the planet so she can own it.

When it’s clear that Benni is actually moving around because the Dregs have him, Kane is ready to turn back until Vilma pays her off with a necklace. Things quickly go south when the truck crashes into a Dreg trap and the survivors must go on foot to a maintenance tunnel that’ll lead them back to the spa. But the Dregs attack the truck and they have Benni. He yells to Vilma, asking if she’ll marry him, to which she says yes. Then he asks for someone to shoot him. Whatever the Dregs are doing to him must be horrible. When they tear into the truck, everyone runs and most of them make it to the tunnel.

FAMILY SQUABBLES AND PLANETARY PROBLEMS

Kane tells Vilma she killed Benni because he asked her to and because the Dregs were having “fun” with him. Everyone is horrified by Kane’s decision and Bella uses that moment to take her gun and to reveal that she is Kane’s daughter! She’s there to destroy Tranquility Spa to get back at the mom who abandoned her. “This is not a way to solve a family dispute!” the Doctor interjects. “How about good ol’ fashion passive-aggressive discussion?” When the Dregs attack again, Ryan and Bella alone make it to the maintenance teleport, which sends them back to the hotel. She still plans to blow up the hotel, even if Ryan is inside.

The others slowly make their way through the tunnel. Kane swears she planned to give the hotel (or maybe the whole planet?) to Bella. Everyone’s oxygen levels are dropping but the Doctor’s are going the fastest because she talks the most (and probably also because she has two hearts so wouldn’t she need more oxygen?). The Doctor, Yaz, and Graham find an old sign in Russian and realize Orphan 55 is Earth. You know what comes next, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

With the Dregs closing in, Vilma sacrifices herself to give everyone else the chance to run. The Doctor finds a way to extend her oxygen supply by a) not talking and b) breathing in a sleeping Dreg’s exhales. In order to survive, they breathe carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, “like a really angry tree!” The stairs back to the hotel are in sight but Kane must stay behind to fight off the Dregs in order for the others to get to safety. As the Fam tries to barricade the Dregs fighting to come through, they voice the final piece of the puzzle: if Orphan 55 is Earth, the Dregs are mutated humans. Both are the result of global warming, mass migration, and war.

THE BEST OF HUMANITY

Unable to hold them off any longer, the best option is to repair the transporter. Since Bella is responsible for the viruses that left the hotel vulnerable, the Doctor makes her help them. Together they trap the Alpha Dreg and bargain with him for their lives, reasoning that he needs the CO2 they exhale to keep breathing in the oxygen-rich hotel. He lets them escape for the time being. Sylas, the mechanic’s much-smarter son, repairs the transporter and Ryan and Yaz use Bella’s bomb to take out as many Dregs as possible. Everyone jumps onto the transporter... but there are too many at once.

Bella decides to be selfless and runs off to shoot at the Dregs. It’s a losing battle, but at least Kane shows up to help her daughter for the first time ever. The remaining survivors safely transport back to where they came from. The Fam doesn’t bother celebrating. They’re worried for Bella, Kane, and the future of the Earth. The Doctor tries to remind them that Orphan 55 is just one possible future. “In your time, humanity’s busy arguing about the washing up while the house burns down. Unless people face facts and change, catastrophe is coming. ... People can save planets or wreck them. That’s the choice. Be the best of humanity.”

Final Thoughts:

• I love that Yaz figured out Orphan 55 without the Doctor even telling her. It feels like we’re slowly pivoting towards Yaz being the companion who is as smart as the Doctor and that’s a very welcome change to her being the companion who has nothing to do.
• Why couldn’t the TARDIS pop down to Orphan 55 and save Bella and Kane?
• So what were the Dregs doing with Benni and why?
• Doctor Who has always had to walk a fine line between explaining everything and explaining just enough that the audience is satisfied. The above questions should have been addressed but in series 11 and it seems again in series 12, Chris Chibnall is comfortable leaving a lot hanging. That’s fine occasionally but when it’s too frequent, it makes every episode feel incomplete. Maybe that’s why I finished this episode feeling like something was off.
• The message about climate change and the need for global cooperation in this episode is a nice one but it also very surface level. It feels like Chibnall’s Doctor Who is often pulling its punches but it’s not clear why.
• There was only a minor reference to “Spyfall” in this episode and no obvious connection to the storyline established there so I’m wondering if series 12 will truly have a plot arc or if the finale will simply tie into the premiere like last season. 

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Doctor Who 12x02 Recap: “Spyfall Part Two” (Who Run the World? Girls!) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“Spyfall Part Two”

Original Airdate: January 5, 2020

Here’s a quick refresher of where we’re at: The Master has returned, blown up the cockpit of a plane that the Doctor’s companions are on, and they’re hurtling towards death. The Doctor is trapped in another dimension by unknown aliens in league with the Master.

A MASTER PLAN

While clinging on for dear life, Ryan finds a series of instructions on how to land the plane. He plugs his phone into controls on the floor and a video recording of the Doctor appears to tell them what to do and gently chastises Graham for, rightfully, panicking. An app on Ryan’s phone allows him to level the plane. “I can fly a plane,” he says. “Can’t ride a bike, but I can fly a plane.”

The Doctor’s situation is trickier. She encounters a 19th century woman named Ada who has visited this dimension often, though she thinks it’s just her mind. One of the creatures appears at her side and the Doctor guesses that going through the creature is like going through a portal. With some reluctance, she takes Ada’s hand and they wake up in 1834 at an invention fair. Without the TARDIS, the Doctor is marooned there.

The Master is flying his Aussie house, which is a TARDIS in disguise, and is giddy that his plan is working. However, his good mood darkens when he learns the Doctor has escaped. He wastes little time in crashing the fair and shrinking people left and right. To stop him from killing more people, he forces the Doctor to kneel and loudly repeat his name. It’s a very uncomfortable image: a female Doctor kneeling in front of a sadistic villain and calling him "master."

But the moment causes the Doctor to come to an important realization: the Master isn’t controlling the aliens, whom he’s identified as the Kasaavins. That gives her some renewed hope. Ada, less helpless than we originally thought, uses a massive steam-powered gun to shoot the Master, allowing the Doctor to escape.

TWO HEARTS BEATING

Ada is the future Ada Lovelace, a famous mathematician, and her friend has a strange machine called the Silver Lady that the Doctor immediately knows came from the Master. It sometimes casts the same image as the Kasaavins and so now the Doctor knows they are alien spies throughout time too. Using the sonic on the Silver Lady, she summons the Kasaavins and jumps in to hopefully return to the 21st Century, but at the last second, Ada grabs her hand and disappears too. And so they land in 1943 Paris instead. Thankfully, they meet Noor Inayat Khan, a WWII wireless operator/spy for the British. Noor hides them in her apartment when the Master, disguised as a Nazi officer, comes looking.

It’s time for a new plan. “The Master tracked me down and wants me dead,” the Doctor says, “whereas I am a big fan of being alive.” To level the playing field, she sends out a code to him. It’s the four-beat drumming that John Simm’s Master heard, which made him insane. But it also sounds like the Doctor Who theme song and Thirteen describes it as the sound of two hearts beating, which is a fascinating idea and one I’d never thought about.

The code works. The Master and the Doctor make psychic contact and agree to meet alone in the Eiffel Tower. There, he admits to shooting C, hacking the car GPS, and convincing the Kasaavins to work with him. But they’re simply the ground crew doing his dirty work of wiping out humanity. When it’s over, the Master gleefully assumes Barton and the Kasaavins will also die. All part of his plan. His mood drops again though when he talks about Gallifrey. On a recent trip home, he found it desolate and destroyed. The Doctor doesn’t believe him, though his track record suggests a 50/50 chance he’s telling the truth.

Any further discussion of home is put on hold when German soldiers rush up the stairs. See, the Doctor sent a coded message saying the Master was a double agent for the British so now the Germans are mad. On her way out, she destroys the perception filter the Master had been using so now the Nazis will see him as his true self. They surround him. The Doctor meets Ada and Noor at the Master’s TARDIS, which he’s arrogantly left unconcealed.

LASER SHOES VS. ALIEN

The fam are doing kind of so-so. Because technology is ultimately tracking everything we do, Barton easily finds them. Ryan smashes their phones and they run to a construction site to hide. With no Doctor to instruct them, they decide to keep trying to stop Barton. Luckily, they still have some spy gadgets on them, which they desperately need when the Kasaavins show up. Graham “fights” them off with his laser shoes. Then the trio lays a trap for Barton’s people by having Yaz call home, knowing the call will be traced. When agents arrive, Graham “intimidates” them with the laser shoe, allowing the trio to take all of the guns, phones, and the car.

Sadly, it’s all for nothing. Barton happily lets the Kasaavins attack his mother, whom he has zip-tied to a chair. Ryan, Yaz, and Graham later find her there, dead. Meanwhile, Barton gives a creepy keynote speech about the unsettling reach of technology, then demonstrates this by texting every phone on the planet saying, “Humanity is over!” Humans and their DNA are now just hard drives to be used by the Kasaavins.

The Silver Lady in front of the fam lights up, delivering Kasaavins all around the world through people’s phones to start repurposing the humans. The trio can’t destroy the machine, especially when the Master, who has just had to live chronologically through the 20th and 21st Century, arrives. But his triumph is short-lived; the Doctor is there to save the day. Or rather, she already did. Using the Master’s TARDIS, she went back to last year and implanted a failsafe into Barton’s Silver Lady. As soon as it detected the Kasaavin army, it shut down. She’s also rigged it to send the Kasaavins back to their dimension permanently and for the kicker, she plays them the recording of the Master confessing he planned to betray them. They scoop him up and deposit him in their barren realm.

BROKEN HOME

The Doctor has no time for reunions with her friends because she has to go make the instructions and video that allowed them to safely land the plane. Then she reclaims her own TARDIS and drops Noor and Ada off in their correct times, wiping their memories of this adventure for good measure.

But another memory is nagging at the Doctor. She flies to Gallifrey and sees the Master was right. It looks bombed and ruined. A hologram activates in the TARDIS. A recording of the Master says he’s the one who destroyed Gallifrey in order to get back at the Founding Fathers for lying to them about the “timeless child” myth, something that has informed their entire identity. “I’d tell you more but why would I make it easy for you?” he says. “It wasn’t for me.”

Devastated and angry, the Doctor buries everything deep so she can fly off with Graham, Ryan, and Yaz again. Frustrated that they still know so little about her, they ask who she is and she tells them. She’s a Time Lord from Gallifrey who can regenerate her whole body. She stole a TARDIS to travel time and space. The Master is an old friend who became an enemy. Yaz wants to visit Gallifrey but the Doctor quietly brushes her off. “Another time.”

Final Thoughts:

• I loved the attention to the Master and the Doctor’s relationship and moral tension but it meant the companions really had nothing to do this episode. Yes, they landed a plane but they ultimately had no effect on saving the day at all. That’s an issue I often had last season and I hope to see it much less moving forward.
• Another pitfall from last season that has come back: the villain faces no consequences. The Master may be trapped in another realm but Barton ran off scot-free. 
• What did the Doctor do with the Master’s TARDIS? And where did he get it?
• There are a lot of parallels in this two-parter to past Doctor/Master storylines including "The Sound of Drums," "The Last of the Time Lords," "Dark Water," and "Death in Heaven." But all of those episodes were season finales, not openers. I’m curious to see how something as major as the Master’s return and the destruction of Gallifrey inform a season moving forward, rather than explaining a season at the end.
• As far as we know from the show, the last time the Doctor was on Gallifrey he exiled the President and became the President himself, shot the General, broke all the laws of time and space, and risked the future of the universe all to save Clara Oswald.
• I absolutely loved this exchange: Graham, shouting at the Doctor’s video recording: “Where are you?! We’re going to die!” The Doctor: “First of all, you’re not gonna die. Second of all, don’t talk back to the screen ‘cause obviously, I’m a recording and I can’t hear you. Third, don’t panic, especially you, Graham.” Graham: “I’m not panicking!” The Doctor: “Yes, you are. And I did just say don’t talk back to the screens.” 

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Doctor Who 12x01 Recap: “Spyfall, Part One” (Guess Who’s Back?) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“Spyfall Part One”

Original Airdate: January 1, 2020

Around the world, spies are being attacked by transparent entities that can appear suddenly through walls, the ceiling, or even a rock formation. Who are these creatures and what do they want? There’s only one woman to call.

BACK TOGETHER AGAIN

The Doctor and her “fam” are back on Earth for the humans to take care of a few things before heading off into time and space once more. But Ryan, Yaz, and Graham hardly get to spend an hour alone before they’re individually picked up by mysterious men in black. The same men come for the Doctor as she’s fixing the TARDIS. “Worst Uber ever!” Graham shouts from one of the cars.

Not long after being piled into a car together, the foursome realizes this isn’t just some shadowy government agency kidnapping. Something weird is going on. The GPS malfunctions, vaporizes the driver, and speeds the car towards a cliff. Then it starts chanting, “Die! Die! Die!” So, not a great sign. The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver is useless (the start of a theme for the episode) and only using a mirror to reflect an energy beam back at the GPS saves them. If that’s not enough excitement, “C” from MI6 suddenly chimes in over the radio to ask them to come in.

As we saw at the start of the episode, spies everywhere have been attacked. Security agencies are all asking the Doctor for her help in solving the crisis. She and her team examine one of the attacked spies, who is now just a shell that looks human. Her DNA has been rewritten. C believes there’s a connection to a former agent named Daniel Barton, who is now a tech mogul. He may even be a double or triple agent. Just as C is about to tell them more, he’s shot through the window. With more shots raining in, Ryan grabs the classic spy gear (think rocket launching cufflinks and laser shoes) MI6 provided and makes a run back to the TARDIS with the rest of the fam.

But even the TARDIS isn’t totally safe. The unknown creatures nearly force their way in, which is a surprise considering nothing is supposed to be able to get into the TARDIS when her doors are closed. The sonic screwdriver has no readings either. All the Doctor has is two leads. First, Ryan and Yaz will go undercover to speak with Barton. Second, the Doctor and Graham will visit a former MI6 agent who has always kept an open mind about extraterrestrial life.

FROM THE BAY TO THE OUTBACK

In San Francisco, Ryan and Yaz pose as a photographer and journalist to get close to Barton. They’re also using the spy gear and some of the Doctor’s own tech to aid them. The interview has barely begun when Barton gets a call and leaves. But he invites them to his birthday party as an apology. The DNA scanner shows he’s only 93% human so it’s safe to say, they’ll be attending.

The Doctor’s MI6 friend named “O” has been living in exile in Australia for a while. After hearing about the new and unusual threat, he wonders how the Doctor can be sure they weren’t followed. Cue the movement sensors around O’s house being tripped. The two Aussie agents there for protection very stupidly go to investigate. The creatures attack the agents, and there’s nothing the Doctor can do but retreat into the house with Graham and O. A forcefield fence stops all but one of the creatures, which the Doctor and O are able to trap in a glass box. She interrogates the creature and learns they are from “far beyond” and are in position to take over the universe.

Around this time, Yaz and Ryan have broken into Barton’s office to download files from his computer. When Barton returns, they hide and hear and see Barton speaking with the creatures, whom he has some agreement with. When the coast is clear, Yaz and Ryan try to leave but one of the creatures attacks Yaz and she disappears while Ryan escapes. But she’s not dead (thank God!), only in some other plane of existence that looks like a forest or maybe a central brain for the creatures. All around her, energy is flowing until suddenly it hits her. Just like that, she’s in the glass box in Australia instead of the creature.

CASINO ROYALE

While everyone is relieved Yaz is fine, the whole situation is strange. When the Doctor decodes a message between the creatures and Barton, she finds their threat to take over the world is real. They’re already positioned in every country, like alien spies. An odd look flicks over Yaz’s face but no one sees it. O speculates that Barton may be the “spymaster.” Luckily they have invites to his party!

The whole episode evokes classic James Bond films. With all of our heroes dressed in tuxes and playing casino games in a villain’s mansion, the Bond vibes are turned up a notch. Plus, the music sometimes sounds almost like the soundtrack from Skyfall and it’s a nice little touch. The Doctor confronts Barton alone outside about C’s death, the alien code, and the alien spies. Barton denies everything, then promptly takes off.

In classic spy fashion, the team chases him to his airplane hangar and all barely manage to jump aboard while he’s taking off. O’s poor running ability confuses the Doctor. He was supposedly a champion sprinter. His face splits into a crazed grin. The real O was captured on his first day at MI6 and someone else took his place. This O is, in fact, the Master.

The Doctor’s oldest enemy/sometimes friend or convenient ally is back. And just like always, the Master loves to make an entrance. Barton isn’t in the cockpit after all, but a bomb is. A sonic screwdriver-proof bomb. Oh, and the Master is controlling the new alien spies. The bomb goes off and the plane nosedives. “Everything that you think you know is a lie,” the Master says tauntingly to the Doctor right before he disappears and she’s taken to the same strange plane Yaz was in earlier. The others are nowhere to be seen.

Final Thoughts:

• I did not see that Master reveal coming! After spending an entire season not acknowledging almost any Doctor Who history or lore, to come back in 2020 with the Master right away is gutsy. But I’m here for it. 
• Sacha Dhawan is an excellent choice for the Master. He was a fantastic foe on Iron Fist and can convey a lot without doing very much. I’d like to see that more going forward because I wasn’t convinced he could pull off the typical manic energy of the Master. 
• Also, I realize the Master/Missy had to regenerate again but I would’ve loved to have seen Michelle Gomez opposite Jodie Whittaker. 
• C: “I’ve read the files. The Doctor is a man.”  The Doctor: “I’ve had an upgrade.”
• There’s definite potential after this first episode for series 12 to resolve some of the issues with series 11. Starting off with a two-parter AND the Master is a huge turnabout from that season. But it’s also surprising to have the Master’s identity revealed right away, rather than a season-long arc like series 3 or 8. So let’s see where things go from here. 

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Doctor Who New Year’s Special Recap: “Resolution” (New Year, Old Enemy) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“Resolution”

Original Airdate: January 1, 2019

When Showrunner Chris Chibnall spoke about Doctor Who’s series eleven at San Diego Comic Con, he emphasized everything is new, including the villains and aliens. Not a single classic or traditional Doctor Who alien or enemy in sight... but maybe he meant just in 2018. In the show’s first ever New Year’s special, Jodie Whittaker finally gets to a take a crack at one of the most iconic foe’s in Doctor Who history.

“I POINT AND LAUGH AT ARCHAEOLOGISTS.” 

In the 9th century, British forces barely won a war against an unnamed opponent. To prevent the enemy from ever returning, it was cut into three pieces, buried in remote places around the globe, and guarded at all times. But one of the “custodians” was killed en route, so his portion lay unburied and unguarded until centuries later when archaeologists Mitch and Lin discover him.

While carefully uncovering the body, the two unknowingly place a part of the unnamed enemy under a UV light and it reconstructs itself. Mitch and Lin are distracted by adorably talking about their New Year’s kiss. They notice too late that one of their bags has gone missing. Lin spies a tentacle creature on the wall and reaches out to touch it — for some reason — just as the Doctor and her team arrive by TARDIS. They had been touring different New Year’s celebrations throughout time and space when the Doctor received an alert for present-day Sheffield.

She sends Mitch and Lin to safety while searching for the creature, which has supposedly disappeared into the water. But Lin is behaving very strangely, and for good reason. The creature isn’t in the water; it’s attached to her back and controlling her actions. All attempts to fight back are futile.

THE RESURRECTED FOE

Team TARDIS land at Graham’s house to regroup and they receive an unexpected and not entirely welcome visitor: Ryan’s dad, Aaron. The Doctor immediately lets him know he let Ryan down and, in so many words, they don’t like him. Ryan agrees to go for coffee with his dad, where Aaron says he’s trying to do better and Ryan reminds him of all of the ways he’s been a major letdown over the years.

It doesn’t take the Doctor long to realize her greatest enemy is loose in Sheffield: a Dalek. More specifically, a reconnaissance scout, which was sent to scope out Earth for the fleet. The team brings Mitch into the TARDIS to help them put all the pieces together and he tells them about the “custodians.” They figure out Lin isn’t safe, which is a bit of an understatement. The Dalek has forced her to drive at top speed. When they’re pulled over by a cop, the Dalek makes Lin attack the officers and steal a uniform and car. It directs her to where portions of its armory and weaponry are stored in Britain’s archives.

The Doctor hacks into the Dalek’s connection with Lin to warn it and to encourage Lin to keep fighting. The Doctor tries calling in reinforcements through UNIT, but UNIT was shut down over a lack of funding due to Brexit. At a remote farm, the Dalek rebuilds its armor and weapons but Lin can tell it’s starting to weaken. She fights it off just before the Doctor and the others arrive. The Doctor faces off with the Dalek alone. It’s reconstructed itself from scraps (“junkyard chic,” as the Doctor says) but its hatred for the Doctor is the same as ever. Unable to kill her while she’s blocking its laser gun, it flies off to summon the Dalek fleet.

METAL AND THE MICROWAVE

Miffed at being left behind, Graham calls for a pickup and Aaron is invited to join too. The Dalek breaks into the national communication station, killing all in its path, and diverts power from the U.K. to contact the fleet. The entire TARDIS group confronts it there and bum rush the alien. They attach pieces of a modified microwave to it and basically cook the Dalek until its armor explodes. Any victory is short lived, as they realize the alien is now attached to Aaron and demands to be taken to the fleet.

The Doctor agrees and then opens the door of the TARDIS on a supernova star. The vacuum sucks the Dalek and Aaron toward space. Ryan makes a heroic reach for his dad, yelling all the while that he loves him, and Aaron is able to overcome the Dalek long enough to grasp his son’s hand just as the alien is sucked into the dying star.

In the end, Aaron passes on the chance to join the TARDIS Team but promises to be around more. The Doctor, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham head off to their next adventure, “everywhere.”

Final Thoughts: 

• Wow it was great to see Thirteen face off with a classic Doctor Who villain. While overall this episode was pretty average, finally getting a Dalek storyline for Thirteen was enough to rate “Resolution” above the other average episodes in series eleven. 
• Once again I find myself asking, "What did Yaz do in this episode?" I know she was there and did things but were any of them actual focal points of the episode? There’s still a lot of attention on Ryan and Graham, which is nice and I love them, but please give Yaz more screen time in series twelve. 
• What exactly was the purpose of having Aaron in this episode? I was so sure he was going to sacrifice himself for Ryan. Instead, he got told off a couple times, nearly died, and made new promises. Maybe this was meant to be a payoff for all of the focus on Ryan’s relationship with him that played throughout the season but it fell short of interesting. 
• I LOVED Thirteen’s scarf. She should wear it way more often.
• A Dalek’s laugh is probably the worst sound I’ve ever heard. 
• Dalek: “Who are you? Identify?” The Doctor: “Oh mate, I’m the Doctor. Ring any bells?”
• The Doctor: “You don’t have to come” Yaz: “Of course we do. We’re always with you.”

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Doctor Who 11x10 Recap: “The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos” (The Return of Tim Shaw) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos”

Original Airdate: December 9, 2018 

On a bare-looking planet, Andinio and Delph, members of the Ux people, have been walking for decades but have finally found the right place to build a shrine. Delph’s earth bending is interrupted by a figure materializing behind them — a very familiar figure. I’d draw out this reveal but it’s pretty obvious it’s Tim Shaw, the villain from this season’s premiere. I guess he didn’t get sent back home after all.

GRAHAM'S PLAN

Roughly 3,500 years later, the TARDIS Team answer a distress call from that same planet. They arrive inside an abandoned spaceship and are met by a man with a gun and short-term memory loss. The Doctor is able to talk him down and persuade him to attach a neural balancer, which she and the team are also wearing. It blocks out the signals on the planet that make you forget things. The man, Paltracki, slowly remembers details and his ship is found to be in perfect working order. He receives a call from Andinio and the “Creator” (again, obviously Tim Shaw) demanding the return of an object Paltracki stole. Either he gives it back, or the remainder of his crew will be killed.

The object looks like a crystal with a small, black mass inside. The Doctor isn’t able to identify what it is exactly and Paltracki can’t remember. They take it with them as they trek towards Tim Shaw’s ship, passing through the wasteland of the battlefield on the way. In a true show of honesty, Graham privately tells the Doctor he intends to kill Tim Shaw as payback for Grace’s death and nothing she can do will stop him. It’s unusually bloodthirsty for the typically easygoing Graham.

Once aboard the ship, the group breaks apart. Yaz and Paltracki go one direction while Ryan and Graham search for the surviving members of Paltracki’s crew. On the way, Ryan picks up where the Doctor left off in criticizing Graham’s plan to kill Tim Shaw, saying Grace wouldn’t approve and neither does he. Ryan even tells his grandad, for the first time, that he loves him and doesn’t want him to break up their TARDIS Team. The argument is interrupted by cyber bots, but a swift-thinking Ryan tricks them into shooting one another. They quickly locate the crew, who are trapped in stasis chambers.

A FALSE GOD

Wandering off on her own, the Doctor encounters Andinio, who is now wielding a gun. She claims people came to attack Tim Shaw and so the Ux defended him because they believe he is their messiah. While speaking to Yaz, Paltracki expands on this for our benefit. His crew was part of the last fleet sent by the Congress of Nine Planets in response to the atrocities the Ux and Tim Shaw were committing. Those atrocities might have to do with the crystal, especially when several more crystals are discovered in a room.

Tim Shaw has the Doctor brought to him and helpfully tells her that she’s the reason for every wicked thing he’s done. She damaged his recall device and injured him with his own DNA bombs, so he accidentally landed on this planet instead of returning home, and was gravely ill. But he got lucky. The Ux believed he was their messiah and nursed him back to health and have preserved him all these years, doing his bidding because they believe he’s a god.

Using Stenza technology and the Ux’s powers, he has been stealing planets and trapping them in the crystals. He orders Andinio to attack a new target: Earth. The Doctor cries that the technology isn’t stable; the planets are trying to break out of their crystals. Bringing another planet on board the ship would be catastrophic. Of course, Tim Shaw doesn’t believe her or care. He does unhook his Darth Vader breathing mask to go after Ryan and Graham, though, who are freeing Paltracki’s crew. Alone with Tim Shaw, Graham decides to be the bigger man and not seek revenge, although he does shoot the alien in the foot when he’s about to attack Ryan. The pair lock Tim Shaw in his own stasis chamber and leave him there.

The Doctor and Yaz place their own neural balancers on the Ux and convince them to put the planets back where they belong. Using the TARDIS, the Ux, and the Stenza tech, the planets are sent back to their rightful places in the universe. The Ux seal the ship so no one else can get to Tim Shaw (though I sense this will ultimately happen at some point) and Paltracki agrees to transport them somewhere new. The Doctor advises them all to “travel hopefully,” then steps into the TARDIS and departs with her friends.

Final Thoughts:

• I noted that this season is full of too many standalone episodes and not enough continuity and plot arcs. Then in the finale, Tim Shaw reappears. But this is probably the laziest version of an arc, if you can even call it that. We could’ve easily gone from episodes one or two straight to the finale and it would’ve made complete sense. Nowhere else in the season was Graham thirsty for revenge or keen on vengeance because of his grief over Grace. Just in this episode. The Doctor is fundamentally the same here as in the premiere. We’ve had maybe two hints that Tim Shaw would reappear and none of them on the level of say, the Bad Wolf arc in season one or even the less-than-subtle Hybrid arc in season nine. 
• This was a perfectly fine episode but lackluster for a finale. It felt like every other episode this season. I hope the New Year’s special (the show is skipping the annual Christmas special for the first time ever) gives us something really substantial because it’ll have to hold us over until early 2020, when season 12 premieres. 
• By the way, Whittaker and the rest of the TARDIS Team are returning for season 12. Rumors have been floating around the Internet for weeks that Whittaker and Chibnall were ducking out after one season but those have proven to be false, as most of us suspected they would be.
• I did appreciate the references to Nine and Ten when the Doctor talks about other crazy things she’s managed to accomplish with the TARDIS. “I once towed your planet halfway across the universe with this TARDIS and turned a Slitheen back into an egg. So let’s give it a go!”

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Doctor Who 11x08 Recap: “The Witchfinders” (Whoo Hoo, Witchy Woman...) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“The Witchfinders”

Original Airdate: November 25, 2018

Ain’t no party like an early 17th-century party because an early 17th-century party is actually a witch trial!

In the tiny village of Bilehurst Cragg, Mistress Becka Savage has gathered the villagers to drown another suspected witch. When they had landed, the Doctor had reminded the team that interfering in historical events was a big no-no. I don’t see why she bothered. As soon as the “witch” is dunked into the lake, the Doctor throws off her coat and jumps in after her.

A ROYALLY SANCTIONED WITCH HUNT

Despite the Doctor’s heroics, the woman is dead. Becka is furious that the ceremony was interrupted and apprehends the Doctor until a flash of the psychic paper informs her that the Doctor and her team are Witchfinders. Instantly apologetic, Becka invites them back to her manor home. On the way, she tells them that she owns much of the land in Bilehurst and is dedicated to purging Satan from everything and everyone, including her horses.

After a bit of snooping around in the Mistress’ room, the Doctor attempts to reason with Becka but the woman is fiercely devoted to King James I, who in turn supports witch trials. Any further persuasion is interrupted by the appearance of King James himself, in all his foppish ridiculousness. He reads the psychic paper and demotes the Doctor to assistant witchfinder because she’s just a woman. She can’t possibly be in charge. Instead, Graham — the only white male available — is recognized as head witchfinder and given a hilarious hat to denote his position. Becka and the king agree that killing everyone in the village is a price worth paying if it means saving their souls from Satan.

MUDDY WATERS

While the others are meeting the king, Yaz has stayed behind to comfort the granddaughter of the supposed witch. Willa’s day goes from bad to worse when she’s attacked by seemingly sentient roots at her home. Yaz hurries back to tell the Doctor, and they return to Willa together — leaving Ryan and Graham to stall Becka and the King from destroying the entire village by nightfall. As you might suspect, Willa’s grandmother was nothing more than a healer who made medicines to help people. After learning that Becka is Willa’s cousin, the Doctor and Yaz encourage Willa to stand up to her and protect herself and her village.

But there are other problems besides Becka’s misplaced witch hunts. The roots that attacked Willa are made of alien mud, which reanimates Willa’s grandmother and several other bodies buried in the earth. King James comes running out of the forest and orders his bodyguard to shoot the mud zombies but is instead blasted with energy from the mud grandmother. Due to her intellect, sonic screwdriver, and love of talking, the Doctor is fingered as a witch. Poor Willa is pressured into agreeing with the accusation.

Alone with King James, the Doctor urges him to trust her and set aside his fear. Meanwhile, her team track the mud zombies to Becka’s house and see granny taking the ax from Becka’s bedside. The Doctor is tied to the same tree branch as every other witch in preparation for her drowning. When Becka touches the branch, it reacts to her. The Doctor begins putting pieces together. Mud runs from Becka’s eye. The Doctor is dropped into the water.

A GOOD OL' FASHIONED TORCH-WIELDING MOB

Even though the team begs the king to bring her up, he hesitates for a long time. It doesn’t matter. The Doctor is very good at holding her breath and learned how to escape from chains from Houdini so she was already free. She confronts Becka directly and the woman finally breaks down. After chopping down a tree spoiling her view, she was infected by the alien mud. In the hopes of ridding herself of the infection, she sought out and killed “witches,” but it’s made no difference. As everyone watches, she is overtaken by the infection and transforms into a Morax, an alien army that the Doctor deduces were imprisoned under the tree for war crimes.

The Morax escape with the King. To protect themselves, the Doctor has her team and Willa chop up the branch from Becka’s tree, which was used as a sort of lock on the Morax’s prison. When made into torches, the tree will be toxic to the Morax. The mob of five march toward the remainder of the tree, where they find the Morax preparing to release their own king and infect King James.

The Doctor is able to reactivate the prison, which draws all of the Morax back into it, except for Becka. Grabbing a torch, the King lights her on fire, destroying her completely. He boasts at having actually vanquished Satan. In the morning, Ryan rebuffs the King’s request to go with him to England and the Doctor and her team depart, giving King James and Willa a look at true magic as the TARDIS dematerializes.

Final Thoughts:

• This episode did a great job of finding a balance between the season’s theme of people being the true villain and an actual monster of the week. Becka Savage was a villain all on her own because she killed innocent people, namely women, in an attempt to save herself. But the Morax were just as awful and wicked. 
• Alan Cumming as King James I was so funny and so gay. He took one look at Ryan and was instantly flirting. We couldn’t have asked for a better guest star to portray a historical figure.
• I’m glad this season has found a good way to address how the Doctor is treated differently as a woman than when she was a man without making that a focal point of every episode. 
• The Doctor: “These are hard times for women. If we’re not being drowned, we’re being patronized to death.”
• The Doctor: “Honestly, if I was still a bloke I could get on with the job and not waste time defending myself!”
• When told that many women were accused of being witches because they talked too much, the Doctor replies, “Which is daft because talking’s brilliant!” I love her so much.
• Throughout the episode, the Doctor was adamant that she doesn’t believe in Satan. Um, she literally met the devil as the Tenth Doctor. Just sayin’.

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Doctor Who 11x07 Recap: “Kerblam!” (Special Delivery) [Guest Poster: Stephanie Coats]

“Kerblam!”

Original Airdate: November 18, 2018

So far in season eleven, Doctor Who has addressed, among other things, racism, privilege, and religious persecution. When the Doctor gets a delivery mid-flight in space from a creepy looking robot, she opens up the box to find a fez and a note that says: “Help me.” It seems pretty clear that this episode is going to address the evils of billion-dollar corporations or the exploitation of workers or rogue robots. But don’t write this episode off just yet.

A VERY WORRYING FIRST DAY

The delivery came courtesy of Kerblam, a huge Amazon-like corporation that uses delivery robots to reach customers anywhere on a planet or in space. Team TARDIS arrives on Kerblam’s home planet and registers as new workers in a gigantic packing plant. By law, Kerblam has to maintain a 10% human workforce in all areas and Judy — the team’s tour guide — is in charge of those 10,000 human workers. The plant is experiencing regular but brief power outages that don’t seem to concern Judy but do get the Doctor’s attention.

The team is split up. The Doctor and Ryan are sent to packing, where they meet Kira, a nice, soft-spoken woman who admits that a few people have gone missing recently. Graham is sent to custodial services, where he’s paired with Charlie — a nice man who provides Graham with a brief history of Kerblam and gives him a diagram of the warehouse.

Yaz gets, arguably, the worse assignment. She goes to the warehouse to retrieve orders and is paired with Dan, a seasoned worker saving money to support his daughter. Could he be an indentured servant? Yaz and Dan are gently reprimanded by a teammate, one of the robot workforce, for talking instead of working. When she gets an order from deep within the warehouse, Dan insists on taking it instead. Thankfully — either because she’s a cop or because she’s been with the Doctor long enough already — Yaz is smart enough to follow Dan anyway. He encounters another teammate that seems to be malfunctioning. Then, Yaz hears him scream and all that’s left of Dan is his scanner and the necklace his daughter made him.

DON'T BE SUSPICIOUS

The Doctor, Yaz, and Ryan report that Dan is missing. Judy and the manager, Mr. Slade, appear concerned but cautious about this news. Kerblam is its own jurisdiction and they’re the ones responsible for all employee welfare. That doesn’t seem ominous at all.

Graham finds the group outside and they all watch as Charlie and Kira are adorably unable to talk to one another because each has a massive crush on the other. The Doctor, Ryan, and Yaz sneak back into Slade’s office after hours but are promptly caught by Judy. She’s suspicious because there’s no record of them before today. However, once the Doctor shows evidence that workers have been going missing and someone sent a “help me” message, Judy agrees to help. Almost as soon as Graham and Charlie arrive, the power goes out. A somehow still active teammate enters and attacks Charlie. He’s saved when Judy rips off the robot’s head. Yeah, she can stick around.

Now convinced that the teammates are rebelling against the humans, the Doctor needs to investigate what changed in the Kerblam code to make them behave this way. She procures Twirly, the first version of Kerblam’s delivery bots, to help sift through the code. From a video feed, Slade sees this and grabs a gun. Teammates escort Kira down to dispatch to receive a special “gift.”

TWIRLY TO THE RESCUE

It’s time for the team to split up again. Yaz, Ryan, and Charlie slide down a dispatch chute to get to that level in search of Kira. The others remain with the Doctor, who plugs Twirly into the Kerblam system. Fairly quickly, the robot says help is needed in dispatch and the pieces fall into place for the Doctor — a human didn’t send a “help me” message because the robots were rebelling; it’s the other way around.

The robots are asking for help.

Using the delivery bot’s ability to teleport, the Doctor transports herself, Graham, and Judy down to dispatch as well. Slade is there waiting for them with his gun... but twist: he’s not the villain in this story. He was suspicious of the Doctor but now sees she’s trying to help, so he joins their group. They discover a disgusting pile of goo that is the liquefied remains of the missing workers. There’s also an army of delivery bots waiting to be sent out. But every box has something different in it so how could they be a threat?

Kira arrives in a small room in dispatch and a box appears with her name on it. Inside is only bubble wrap. Outside the room and unable to get in, Charlie screams for her not to do what every person does with bubble wrap. But she can’t hear him. She pops a bubble. A gas is released and Kira disappears, dead like the others. Dead like every person who receives one of the packages the army of delivery bots is holding.

HUMANS ARE THE WORST

Ryan realizes it first: Kerblam isn’t evil or forcing its workers into servitude, and the robots aren’t attacking people at random or staging a rebellion. Charlie is behind everything. Ryan runs to the others and tells them. Charlie holds up a button to activate the army of bots and confesses. He’s angry because only 10% of the workforce is human and he believes people have been replaced by technology. So he intends to show the danger of technology by killing thousands of people using Kerblam’s own delivery bots, making it appear that they have malfunctioned or gone rogue.

But Kerblam’s system has been fighting him the entire time, sending a message to the Doctor, trying to kill him in Slade’s office, and even taking Kira in the hopes that Charlie’s affection for her would stop him from going through with his plan. But he presses the button anyway, then smashes it on the ground.

Working quickly, the Doctor uses Twirly to change the delivery instructions for Charlie’s bots. She sets them to deliver their boxes to themselves and to pop the bubble wrap right where they are in dispatch. She and Graham both call out to Charlie to leave with them but he runs among the bots and dies when they explode. The Doctor teleports everyone else away safely.

In the aftermath, Judy says she and Slade will explore including more people in Kerblam’s operations. Remembering Dan’s kindness, Yaz requests they stop off to see his daughter so she can return his necklace to her.

Final Thoughts:

• There’s a clear theme this season of people and their hatred being the enemy rather than monsters or killer aliens. I like this theme but after seven episodes of it, I have to say it’s starting to feel a little old. “Kerblam!” is the first time this season we’ve seen the villain of the story face any consequences for his actions. If everything ties together into a larger arc by the season’s end, I’m prepared to take this criticism back. But as it stands right now, I’m ready for a more old-fashioned Doctor Who episode. 
• I’m glad the show continues to mention Ryan’s dyspraxia and how it affects his ability to do things like jump down a chute or leap onto moving conveyor belts. A lot of other shows might’ve made a big deal about it once and then forgotten about it but there’s obviously conscious thought going into how someone with dyspraxia would approach the adventures in the TARDIS. 
• I know the fez is a ~thing~ in Doctor Who but I never particularly cared for it. However, Thirteen in the fez with her rolled up pants was a ridiculous and fantastic look.
• The Doctor: “The system isn’t the problem. How people use and exploit the systems, that’s the problem.”

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