This feedback was sent to the Staggering Stories podcast for their 472nd episode.
We’re into the back half of this season of Doctor Who now, and these past two episodes have been the best ones of this run so far.
First of all, The Story and the Engine. I’ve had the whole week to ruminate over now and, unlike previous stories this season, this was the first one that made me want to go back and watch it again. While they didn’t actually film in Lagos for this, the production design did seem to carry over the effect of a very vibrant and colourful marketplace. Having never been there, I’ve no way to personally know how accurate it was, but it felt very real and a distinctly different setting for the show to visit. Though that was not where the story took place, it did make me wonder how many times this Doctor has actually been back there. Certainly there’s quite a few gaps in the time we’ve known number 15 that he could have been kicking around in this incarnation for years. So let’s just assume that.
It was quite an interesting premise, with this vessel powered by stories, though I did kind of wonder how the captive customers managed to keep going for all the time they’ve been kept there. Did they manage to sleep, eat, take bathroom breaks in all the time they’d been missing? The episode skips over these for convenience, but it was something I was wondering as to the practicality of what they were trapped in.
I also didn’t quite follow the Barber’s history and how he related to these storyteller gods, but that hasn’t quite bothered me as much either. I just rather went along for the ride on this one.
Now The Intersteller Song Contest… Another good episode. As I mentioned before, I was doing my best to avoid teasers, trailers, and spoilers. I knew the title of this, and I’m sure that we probably had skepticism based on that title as to how musical this was going to be. Fortunately, any such fears seemed to be unfounded here. Really only one song and a couple of bits of others, and that seemed right. Really, though… could Dugga Do be Murray Gold’s best work?
The story itself was incredibly simple, and admittedly one that I could see coming a mile off with how it was telegraphed with the corporate sponsorship of the Poppy Honey, the Hellions, and the focus on Cora, who wa pretending to be from Trion- which as we all know was from where Turlough hailed from. It turning out to be motivated in revenge seemed all too apparent, as well as the real identity of Cora.
But the simplicity of the story aside, there was some of the best character work we’ve seen this season. From the couple of Gary and Mike to Belinda realizing that she narrowly escaped dying in space only to be trapped alone, to the Doctor pushed over the edge.
The way that most of the audience went flying off into space when the air bubble over the stadium popped and we had a view of this happening in total silence was extremely well done. That scene was incredibly shocking, and I was just amazed that – at that time – we had seen one person be responsible for thousands of deaths like that. Well, one person who was not some kind of god, turning people into dust and stuff like that.
Of course, the Doctor would be fine. Not only would Doctor Who not kill off him permanently, but we’ve seen him survive in space for a while before. Yet here’s where we get our first surprise of the episode; Susan!
I’m delighted to see Carol Ann Ford back, and I really, really hope that this was not the only time she’ll appear this season. I do wonder why she ‘appeared’ to the Doctor ‘now’, and whether we’ll get more on that.
Then we get some Vengeful Doctor with how he treats Kid – a level of which we’ve not seen since The Family of Blood. Not even his vision of Susan seems to stop him from torturing Kid, and it’s only finding out that Belinda is alive and well that pulls him back from that.
Now for the thing that annoyed me about this episode. Not the reveal, but how the reveal was done. I have habitually skipped the credits to avoid the next time trailer. So of course, once the credits started to roll; skip.
Then I find out from people elsewhere talking about a mid-credit thing, and I was like the Tennant Doctor doing “What?”
Back I go and watch that mid-credit bit. And there we have it. The broken clock of “It’s the Rani!” is finally correct. It had to happen sometime, right? I know that people had been wondering if Mrs Flood was her, because of the whole anagram thing… Rani… Rain… Flood. But no, we’d discounted this because always when we think it is, it never is the Rani.
To be honest… I felt it was anticlimactic.
Then Bigeneration? Wasn’t this meant to be ultra rare and mythical? Guess not, since we’ve now had it twice.
Anyway, next week we finally get to May 24th, and the end of the world… again.
