Doctor Who 1.9 "Empire of Death" (major spoilers)

 

After eight episodes and a whole lot of fanfare, we finally discover the secrets of this season, like Ruby's mother's name and Sutekh's long-standing plan to destroy the Doctor. Still, other secrets (like just who is this Mrs. Flood person?) will have to wait until next season. 

Sutekh has won, and his minions are busy bringing his gift of death to the planet. The Doctor and Mel and Ruby escape in the "memory Tardis" from inside the videotape (the same Tardis from the spin-off series Tales of The Tardis in a nice callback.) We learn that Sutekh has been attached to the real Tardis, following the Doctor, and spreading decoy Susans across the universe since the events of "Pyramids of Mars" in 1975, meaning Sutekh has been on his revenge mission for forty-nine years, encompassing half of the original series and all of the new show.

Sutekh's a formidable villain, and I'm so glad they got the original voice actor to play him (despite him being in his 90's.) You can sense the unrelenting hatred in his being with each syllable he utters. After he takes over Mel's mind psychically, the Doctor and Ruby hatch a plan to defeat him which is too goofy to describe here, but it works. 

After trapping Sutekh with a "living rope" to the outside of the Tardis, he drags him throughout the Universe, causing it to regenerate. (The death of death is life, y'see.) The Doctor cuts the rope loose and Sutekh flies unprotected into the Time Vortex, supposedly destroyed. 

As for Ruby's mother, she is....no one in particular, just a very average person. Somehow it was the collective interest and desire for story that powered Ruby's odd powers. No it doesn't make any sense as a satisfying answer, but whatever. She is reunited with her parents and the Doctor leaves her on Earth to get acquainted with them, returning to his solo travels. 

Did you forget about Mrs. Flood? She pops up at the very end, holding a suitcase and ominously saying that Ruby's story is over, but the Doctor's will end in torment. It's clear we should have been paying more attention to her than the whole Ruby story, which turned out to be a red herring. We can hope for some resolution to this (maybe) in the upcoming Christmas special before the next series starts sometime in 2025. 

All in all, a great finale with a masterful villain. Some of the writing is a little dopey in spots (especially the stuff with the explanation of Ruby's powers being "everyone just really, really believed in it") but this was a solid ending to the first Disney-fied Doctor Who season. Now you can watch all the reruns since 1975 and imagine where Sutekh is in the story, if that's your thing. 

Recap of Series Fourteen, or Disney Season One:

The Church on Ruby Road   A-

Space Babies                        C+

The Devil's Chord                 B+

Boom                                    A-

47 Yards                                A+

Dot and Bubble                     A+

Rogue                                   A-

The Legend of Ruby Sunday   A-

Empire of Death                  A

Doctor Who 1.8 The Legend of Ruby Sunday (Major Spoilers)

 In this first part of the two-part season finale, we get to see the return of old companion Mel (again), and an answer to just who this Susan person is who's been popping up all over time and space. Strangely though, for an episode promising to divulge Ruby's secrets, which we've been waiting for all season, those particular answers are confined to the next episode. 

The episode wastes no time starting in UNIT headquarters where the Doctor demands an investigation of the mysterious woman "Susan" they keep seeing everywhere. As well, they further research the mystery of Ruby's origins via a VHS cassette surveillance recording taped on the night of her birth. Through some awesome technology The Doctor and Ruby are able to enter a projection of the video and look for Ruby's mother. They see her but the technology is unable to capture a picture of her face when she turns to them. 

Meanwhile, the "Susan Triad" woman is making waves, being a very popular rich benevolent-type figure in this reality (their version of Bill Gates) and about to unleash a new technology upon the masses. The Doctor is convinced that Susan is a later, regenerated version of his granddaughter, but something still doesn't feel right...

A strange effect circles the Tardis, all pulsing red light and black smoke. On stage, taping a promotional video, Susan Twist seems to forget who she is. Her "dreams" that are haunting are all actual adventures that the Doctor and Ruby have had, i.e the whole of the season to this point. UNIT cannot penetrate the effect surrounding the TARDIS and watch in horror as the true villain reveals himself.

No, it's not the Master, the Rani, or the Valeyard (all good guesses), but the clues were there if you followed them. The obvious anagram of Tardis from S-Triad was meant to point in the direction of Susan being the Doctor's granddaughter, but sadly that was just a red herring to confuse the viewer. The other clue lay in the name of the technology also, but in a different way: Sue (Susan) Technology (Tech)- put together is Sue Tech or Sutekh, the Destroyer of Worlds, who the 4th Doctor fought in the classic serial Pyramids of Mars. I have to admit here I was yelling in joy a little bit when I heard this reveal. 

"Susan" transforms herself into Sutekh's undead assistant, and even manages to get out a line stolen from the classic series ("I bring you Sutekh's gift....of death.") The Doctor is horrified, and we still don't know what the deal is with Ruby! How can we wait a week under these circumstances? I don't know but let's find out together. For this first part of the finale, I grade it an A-.

Doctor Who 1.7 "Rogue"

This episode was, as a long-time viewer, genuinely shocking in that a rule was broken that the Doctor, as an alien being, doesn't get involved in human romance. This was iron-clad in the original series but has been chipped away gradually with the show's reboot in 2005. The Ninth Doctor got a brief flirtation in "The Doctor Dances", Doctor 10 mooned over Lady Pompadour in "The Lady in The Fireplace". 11 was a little too goofy to be interested in love, but 12 ended up marrying River Song, longtime companion and mother to another longtime companion (timey wimey stuff.) With Jodie Whittaker's arrival as Doctor 13, there were intimations of a same-sex crush with a companion, although the show chose not to develop this relationship very closely. Doctor 14 admitted to Donna Noble he found Isaac Newton "hot" and is shocked by this, although Donna grumbled "It was never very far from the surface, mate." And now Ncuti Gatwa's 15th Doctor, who the actor has publicly stated is a gay character, gets his very own romance story.

The Tardis lands in 1812 England, with Ruby getting whisked away almost immediately to search for "available bachelors" at the Bridgerton-style palace party they arrive at. The Doctor notices an odd signal on his Sonic Screwdriver indicating another time traveler is at the party. He manages to find a lone figure apart from the party, Rogue, played by Jonathan Groff. They banter for a while until Rogue takes the Doctor prisoner. He's a bounty hunter who has landed in this zone looking for shape-shifting aliens he's been promised a huge reward for capturing. He's convinced the Doctor is one of them.

Meanwhile, the aliens move through the party killing random guests. It is explained the aliens saw the TV signals for Bridgerton from deep in space and decided to travel to this time to kill people and take over their likenesses- just because they like doing it. Ruby makes friends with another guest, who finds Ruby's odd slang like "OK" fascinating. 

After the Doctor displays his true self to Rogue and convinces him he's not a bad guy, they hatch a plan to draw the aliens out by doing something shocking, as they are attracted to scandal and controversy. And what could be more scandalous in 1812 than two men dancing? They dance together in a fascinatingly well-choreographed sequence, but then Rogue offers the Doctor his ring and the Doc freaks out and runs off. The aliens eat this up and set their sights on the two as their next victims.

Of course, the Doc's plan works, and the aliens are trapped in a transporter lock which fixes them all in place, unfortunately Ruby is among them as the Doctor mistakenly thought she was taken over by one of the creatures. The Doctor is then faced with the choice of banishing the aliens but losing Ruby forever or causing the extinction of humanity. He finds himself unable to make this choice. Rogue sees this and takes Ruby's place, sending himself into exile along with the aliens, but not before giving the Doctor a parting kiss.

And while the Doctor has been kissed by men before (most notably by Jack Harkness), this is the first time we see a full on romantic-style smooch. There is a palpable chemistry between the two and it would be hard to imagine them not bringing the character back at some undisclosed point in the future.

The episode is filled with great moments (The Doctor's reaction to Rogue's cloaked ship, the display of all his previous lives the Doctor creates when begging for his life, Rogue desperately trying to turn off the Kylie Minogue song in his ship) that make an enjoyable, fun romp as a palate cleanser before the two-part finale coming next week.

No doubt the fan faction who love to yell online about how "woke" the show is now will have a field day screeching about how the Doctor kissed a man. But this is a different, evolved Doctor. He's moved past his traumatic history and left that behind. He's just out to have a good time now. And he just spent an entire incarnation as a woman, so why wouldn't he be attracted to men? For a series that constantly reinvents itself, this is just another step in its evolution. My Grade: A-

 

Doctor Who 1.6 Review "Dot And Bubble"

 

For those of you who always wondered, "What if Doctor Who did its own version of a Black Mirror episode?" your prayers have been answered. This week the Doctor and Ruby take a back seat to the adventures of Lindsy Pepper-Bean, a thouroughly unlikeable character that displays some shocking behavior.

Lindsy is a member of the Fine Time colony (inspired by New Order?) in the far future, a group of exclusive spoiled rich kids from the Homeworld who exist in a technological cocoon. The "dot" of the story is the tiny portable hard drive they all carry that powers the "bubble", a circular screen of all their friends, talking in live time, that completely covers their heads. They have grown such a dependence on the technology they can't bear to have it turned off (Lindsy at one point complains that she has forgotten how to walk without the tech providing arrows for her to follow.)

The Doctor and Ruby find their way into Lindsy's bubble and attempt to warn her of the danger surround her: slug-like monsters are eating her friends, but no one seems to notice or care. After some severe prodding and a lot of petulant resistance on Lindsy's part, she realizes the danger and tries to escape. 

Lots of dark, dark satire here, with a society so sated by tech they can't even look up when someone next to them is being eaten alive. It's pretty hilarious that their society is being destroyed by slugs, one of the slowest-moving creatures in existence. What's less funny is how the episode resolves. Stop reading if you don't want spoilers.

Lindsy finally manages to find the path to the river to exit the city, and the Doctor and Rose are waiting there. The Doctor knows the humans leaving the colony have no survival skills and will be killed by the environment. He offers to save them all and transport them to whatever planet they want. They consider this offer.... then laugh and ridicule him, saying that people like them listening to someone like him in real life could never happen. They dismiss the idea of his time machine as laughable and happily march off to their certain doom, laughing at him all the way.

The Doctor doesn't know how to process this. He laughs, then stops himself and starts screaming. It's a great acting turn from Ncuti Gatwa, who up to this point has not been forced to show this side of the Doctor: utter disbelief. We as a viewer don't care about Lindsy, because she's a backstabbing, spoiled rotten brat, but the Doctor sincerely doesn't care about that. He tells her, "It doesn't matter if you hate me, let me save you." But that's not going to happen this time.

The show keeps getting better, week by week, and this is a great example of it firing on all cylinders. To my knowledge the show has never featured an antihero like Lindsy as a main character, and the newness of it is refreshing. It's also got a very, very dark edge for a show aired on Disney. This one is something special. My rating: A+

Doctor Who 1.5 "73 Yards"

As if to wash the sugary taste of the early episodes of the series away, this week's installment of Doctor Who, "73 Yards", is perhaps the best of the year, featuring a truly creepy enemy that makes the Weeping Angels look like Hello Kitty. This might be a bit too much for the young ones, so viewer beware.

Soon after landing on a clifftop in Wales, Ruby loses track of the Doctor and finds herself wandering through the landscape, looking for him....and waiting. Years and years of waiting. She also finds herself perpetually followed by a mysterious figure, who for some reason is always 73 yards away from her...no more, no less, so she cannot approach her without her moving. Any help she enlists to send to the woman to ask her why she is doing this (random townspeople, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart in a surprising cameo) run away in terror when the woman whispers something in their ear. 

We see Ruby begin to live an entire alternate life as she waits for the Doctor to return, aging from 25 to 30 to 80 and beyond. For her entire life, she is haunted and stalked by this figure. Her friends try to convince (gaslight) her that she is imagining the whole thing. But clearly, she is not. 

The Doctor is gone for the majority of the episode, leaving Ruby to figure out the mystery on her own. When she does finally connect the pieces the resolution is solid and satisfying, despite leaving many details up to the viewer to decide. We see a whole new side to Ruby whose character is fleshed out here, making her seem like her own person rather than simply an amalgam of Clara, Rose and Amy. 

This fits right in the "Doctor-lite" type of episode we tend to get at least once a season. Fortunately, these types of episodes are always classics ("Turn Left", "The Girl Who Waited") and this is as good if not better than any of the previous ones. The complete opposite of the paper thin, watered-down slapstick of the season premiere, and is a thoroughly gripping, well-written hour with an amazing central performance and an ending that actually makes sense without needing to be timey-wimey. My grade: a solid A+. 

Doctor Who review: 1.4 "BOOM"

 

After the backlash against the supposed "wokeness" of the first two episodes, Doctor Who finally delivers a tense and old-fashioned bottle style episode focusing on the two main characters in one main set. The forced humor is gone and the Doctor shows his serious side as he faces the possibility of death for real. The whole episode actually functions quite well as a metaphor for death and loss. 

Shortly after the TARDIS arrives on a war-torn planet, the Doctor accidentally steps on a landmine, starting the activation process that will explode it, however, he doesn't set his second foot down, delaying the detonation while the landmine tech searches for a complete target body. The Doctor spends the majority of the episode balancing on the landmine, desperate to keep it from detonating, while also being forced to find a solution to the war destroying the planet. 

Companion Ruby gets some character development here as we see how unafraid she is to save the Doctor even though she realizes she may very well be killed. She is shaping up to be as fearless as any classic companion like Leela or Sara Jane. The Doctor shows us his Zen Master technique, slowing his pulse and temperature to keep the bomb from igniting. Ncuti Gatwa puts on a master class of acting here, with the Doctor desperately trying to fight for his life. See? Real stakes, not some nonsense about space babies and booger monsters. 

The creepy medical robots (SPOILER) which turn out to be the real villains, are suitably upsetting, murderous tanks with a grandmotherly face plastered on. And the resolution of the story is actually quite clever and thought-out, unlike the weak resolution of the last couple of episodes. Fifteen's happy speech at the end is actually deserved and moving. Please keep the new episodes like this! This one's a classic. My Rating: A-

Doctor Who is back with a one-two punch! But, is it any good? (Part 2)

Unlike the lackluster first episode, the second bolts right out of the gate with the Tardis crew going to swinging London in 1963 to visit the Beatles first recording sessions, which even the Doctor is surprised he's never done before. But the sessions are not what they seem, because a chaotic monster that feeds on music has taken over, dooming humanity to extinction. As the show theorizes, a race without music grows sour and frustrated, turning to war as the only outlet for their emotions. I got a little echo of classic Who in the scene where the Doctor shows Ruby the wasteland that the world will become if the Maestro is allowed to win echoes the scene in Pyramids of Mars where the 4th Doctor does the same for Sara in showing her a possible future if the evil Sutekh is allowed to live.

The Maestro herself (Jinx Monsoon) is wonderful, all high-strung energy and vicious jokes, a real, solid villain the show has been unable to produce in its last few years. The scenes with her crawling out of pianos are weirdly disturbing and probably will freak out quite a few younger viewers. That's what the sofa is for kids, so you can hide behind it. 

It is disappointing that in an episode featuring the Beatles, they only appear on screen for a few minutes, the bulk of the story given over to the Doctor/Maestro battle. But hey, John and Paul end up saving the day, so that's alright then. What isn't so alright is the forced musical number inserted at the very end of the episode, which I utterly loathed. I mean, I get why it's there, but I still hated every second of it. It was like I was suddenly watching "High School Musical" or something.

The Doctor and Ruby's relationship deepens somewhat in this episode, and they are already settling in as a classic team up. What isn't settling in as much is the new glossy exterior of the show and different style (we are firmly in fantasy territory here, not sci-fi) but those will probably grow on me eventually. The Doctor reacts well when confronted with something he doesn't understand, hope to see more of that explored in the future, and the hint of seeing the rest of the Toymaker's "legions" is promising. Just no more musical numbers, please. My Grade: B+