Time for a historical romp! But can the Doctor’s romance right a struggling season?
What’s The Episode?Rogue
What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor and Ruby travel back to Regency England where they say the word “Bridgerton” a lot, in case the audience don’t get it. There they encounter mysterious bounty-hunter Rogue (Jonathan Groff) who is there to… er, stop the Chulder? They’re shape-shifting aliens who enjoy cosplaying but also suddenly decide they want to destroy the world for a bit of added jeopardy. The Doctor and Rogue have a bit of a romance while Ruby largely gets lost in a typical love-plot of the era. Eventually (very eventually) the Chulda are defeated, the world is saved, Rogue sacrifices himself to save Ruby, and that’s pretty much that.
Can the fifth episode of the season manage to land its satire? Is it satire?
What’s the Episode?Dot and Bubble
What’s It All About, JG? Lindy Pepper-Bean, an insufferable rich brat, is a resident of the town (?) of Finetime, a chintzy, dayglo residence where she lives within a literal bubble of social media and friends, projected round her by a floating “dot”. First Ruby, then the Doctor, try to break into her feed because the residents are slowly (very slowly, actually) being eaten by slug-like creatures. Lindy, unable to even walk in a straight line without guidance from her dot, manages to escape her place of work with the Doctor and Ruby’s help and encounters Ricky, a vacuous singer who turns out to actually be fairly smart underneath it all. They’re directed to the basement by the Doctor to try and escape. While trying to open a door to let them out into the Wild Woods beyond, the Doctor realises the dot is responsible for all the deaths and it turns violent and tries to kill Lindy. She sacrifices Ricky so she can escape, then finally meets the Doctor and Ruby in real life, where other members of the Finetime community are waiting. But rather than allow the Doctor to rescue them, they sail off into the Wild Woods, presumably to die terrible deaths, while the Doctor rages against his inability to save them.
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…
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.
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”.
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.
It’s the end of the 13th Doctor. But does Jodie Whittaker’s version get the exist she so richly deserves?
What’s the Show?Jodie Whittaker’s final, 90-minute epic turn as the Doctor.
What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor, Yaz and Dan attempt to stop a space-train getting hijacked by a bunch of Cybermen (alright: CyberMasters). Unsuccessfully, as it happens, and the CyberMasters steal the cargo – what appears to be a young girl. Dan, having had enough of nearly dying, decides it’s time to call it quits while he’s ahead of the game and leaves. Oh yes, and a Dalek wants to give the Doctor the key to destroying his species, like you do. Meanwhile, Tegan (Tegan!) and Ace (Ace!) are investigating the abduction of seismologists and artwork, and the Master is at work in Russia, posing as Rasputin.
He’s brought the Daleks, the CyberMasters and himself together in an attempt to finally defeat the Doctor – he wants to take over the Doctor’s body, then destroy everything she stands for. And he uses the child – actually a Qurunx, an enslaved energy being – to do it. The Doctor fights back from the inside with the help of the 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th in phantom form, and on the outside Tegan and Ace help defeat the CyberMasters while Yaz forces the Master to reverse his takeover of the Doctor and forces him back into his own body. As the Qurunx escapes its bonds, the Master directs its energy towards the Doctor in a final act of revenge, mortally wounding her and forcing her to (not very surprisingly) regenerate into David Tennant. Again.
What’s The Show? The second-last Jodie Whittaker Doctor Who story, Legend Of The Sea Devils.
What’s It All About, JG? The TARDIS is pulled off course to 19th Century China, where a statue has been convincingly attacked by Madame Ching (Crystal Yu) who’s searching for treasure, only to reveal… a Sea Devil! Excitement? Er… anyway, Dan encounters Ying Ki (Marlowe Chan-Reeves), whose father was killed by said Sea Devil back in the day aboard the ship Flor de la Mar. They sneak aboard Madame Ching’s pirate ship and are immediately captured. She reveals that she needs the treasure from the selfsame Flor de la Mar to get her crew back – they’ve been kidnapped and are being held to ransom. The Doctor and Yaz slip back in time to the 16th century to try and find the treasure, unsuccessfully, and are taken to the Sea Devils’ underground lair. It turns out the Sea Devils are looking for the Keystone to execute their plans and flood the Earth, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s currently hanging round the neck of Ying Ki, passed down from his father. The captain of the Flor de la Mar, Ji-Hun (Arthur Lee) has been kept alive in stasis by the Sea Devils and had tricked them by getting the Keystone safely away. There’s a battle on the Sea Devil-converted wreck of the Flor de la Mar, and Ji-Hun sacrifices himself so the regular cast can escape and the Sea Devils are foiled. It all wraps up with a scene between the Doctor and Yaz, where the Yaz confesses her feelings and the Doctor gently, but firmly, turns her down. And then we get that trailer…
What’s The Show?The Doctor Who New Year’s special, Eve Of The Daleks.
What’s It All About, JG?The Doctor, Yaz and Dan land on New Year’s Eve in a self-storage depot while the Doctor attempts to purge the remaining Flux energy from the TARDIS. Turns out doing that causes a time loop, which the Daleks pop into in order to extract revenge for the Doctor wiping out their war fleet with the Flux. Also there are Sarah (a brilliant Aisling Bea) and oddball Nick (Adjani Salmon), who’s storing the possessions of ex-girlfriends there and using it as an excuse to see Sarah, on whom he has an unrequited crush. Every time the Executioner Daleks – with the really cool Gatling gun weapons – kill them, time resets and the loop becomes just that little bit shorter, so its up to the Doctor to figure out how they can defeat the Daleks, keep everyone alive, and escape the loop before time runs out.
Is third time the charm for Chris Chibnall’s version of Doctor Who? Remarkably, yes!
What’s The Show?Doctor Who‘s six episode long truncated series 13
What’s It All About, JG? Trying to find out if there’s anything worth salvaging from the Chibnall era of Doctor Who before both he and the reliably brilliant Jodie Whittaker bow out, and also embracing the full force of serialisation. But in terms of plot, the universe is threatened by a mysterious “Flux event” the Doctor knows nothing about. The Earth is protected by the Lupari, as represented by the appealingly dog-like Karvaista. Turns out there’s been some kind of battle between Space and Time (capital S and capital T) as represented by Azure and Swarm on one side and the mysterious Division on the other. Meanwhile, two survivors of the Flux, Vinder and Bel, are separated and are trying to reunite while getting into/out of the way of the plot, and the Doctor has a new companion, Dan (a surprisingly strong John Bishop), a Liverpudlian who turns out to be a dab hand at taking out Sontarans with a wok. It all ends with the Doctor struggling to get back her memories from her adoptive mother (unsuccessfully), a snake-like Grand Serpent infiltrating UNIT, and the Flux wiping out vast amounts of Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans. Whatever else you can say about Flux, it’t not lacking for event!
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