May 2024 – JG Judgementally Comments…

Season 14, Episode 4 – 73 Yards

Third time was the charm for this season but can the fourth episode keep up the winning streak?

What’s It All About, JG? Good question. The Doctor steps on a fairy circle after exiting the TARDIS and vanishes. Ruby then spends the rest of the episode haunted by a figure she can’t quite focus on that stays the titular 73 yards away. And whenever anyone encounters the out-of-focus figure, they treat Ruby with contempt and turn away from her, whether random figures in a village, family members, or UNIT. This haunts Ruby throughout her life until she figures out how to use this “power” and takes down a fascist UK prime minister who wants to use a nuke just coz. Eventually, on Ruby’s deathbed, the mysterious figure is revealed to be Ruby herself, smeared across her own timeline. She can then go back in time and is able to stop the Doctor from breaking the charm and it’s all over. Erm. Something like that, anyway…

Season 14, Episode 3 – Boom

Stephen Moffat returns to the world of Doctor Who. But has he managed a classic or will it blow up in his face?

What’s the Episode? Boom

What’s It All About? The Doctor and Ruby visit a war-torn planet where the Doctor accidentally stands on a land mine then spends the next forty-five minutes trying not to do that. That’s pretty much it. Oh, there’s a war on, and people are reduced to flesh tubes when they die, and ambulances that assess whether it’s worth spending money keeping you alive, and a Dad’s love for his child saves the day, and Ruby is shot (but gets better) and plenty more besides but that’s what it comes down to. The Doctor. On a mine. For an episode.

Season 14 (look, that’s what I’m going with), Episode 2 – “The Devil’s Chord”

Can the second episode of the season improve things from the first? Ehh…

What’s The Episode? “The Devil’s Chord”

What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor and Ruby travel back in time to watch the Beatles record their first album, only to discover that they’re crap. Turns out music has been stolen by one of the Pantheon, Maestro, who is the child of the Toymaker. Maestro manifests as a drag queen / panto dame who jumps out of painos and wants to end all music so that… um… music plays itself or something. It’s a bit vague. Never mind though, because the Doctor and Ruby take on Mastero, which involves a lot of running around and then a music battle which they lose. Just when it looks like they’re done for, Lennon and McCartney play the magic chord that banishes Maestro who, just before departing, ponderously tells us that “The One Who Waits” is, er, waiting and the day is saved in time for a musical number to end the episode with, “There’s Always A Twist At The End”.

Doctor Who – Season… Uh, Fourteen? Forty? One? Did the Jodie/David Specials Count As A Season? Maybe? Something. Anyway, Episode 1 – “Space Babies”

Ncuti Gatwa’s first season gets underway. But can this Doctor get a decent launch now Christmas has been and gone?

What’s The Episode? “Space Babies”.

What’s It All About, JG? Babies. In Space. You can’t say the title doesn’t give you the information you need. The Doctor and Ruby land on a space station and are immediately chased by a monster. Escaping in a lift, they discover the entire station is run by babies, having been abandoned by people so pro-life they’d rather let the babies die a horrible death than turn off the machine that makes them (in a baby farm, of all things). The Doctor and Ruby faff about a bit before discovering that the computer looking after the babies, Nan-E, is actually a person called Jocelyn who couldn’t bear the idea of abandoning the babies and stayed behind to protect them. After trying to eject the creature into space, they realise that it’s a) made of snot (a literal bogeyman) and b) the only one of its kind so the Doctor gets to do all that Last of the Time Lords stuff we left a good fifteen years ago. Great. (Not that he is the Last Of The Time Lords. Actually, he’s the first, but let’s not get into that right now.) Anyway, the snot monster is saved, the babies are rescued by letting off a massive fart and all’s well that ends well.