​Whenever a new actor first appears on our television screens as the Doctor, there are a number of iconic moments the long-term audience is waiting for – notably what they will wear, but also when will they first encounter the dreaded Daleks. It could be argued that no-one is really Doctor Who until they’ve had a face off with the pepper pot Nazis from the planet Skaro.

Series 11 of Doctor Who has been unique in that it has featured no returning monsters or characters from previous episodes. The closest we have come to this is Season 7 back in 1970 - when a Doctor, newly exiled and regenerated, comes crashing down to Earth in the form of Jon Pertwee, to meet a brand new companion, and brand new aliens. But even s7 has familiarity in the form of UNIT and the Brigadier. It was quite a high risk to have nothing from the Doctor’s past in a series that redefined the gender of the protagonist, but what it did do is build up some anticipation, and helped to make this New Year’s Day episode feel even more special than normal.

Another common criticism of Series 11 has been that the emphasis has been a little too much on social commentary and less on sci fi baddies from outer space. In fact, quite a lot of Doctor Who this year, for all its back to basics emphasis, hasn’t always felt like pure Doctor Who.

So, with all that in mind, I think the audience (fans and casual viewers combined) were crying out for the return of the Daleks. It was all kept a mystery up to a week before transmission and Christmas Day when the next time trailer originally seen at the end of Series 11’s episode 10 was supplemented with the sound of a Dalek screaming ‘EX-TER-MIN-ATE’, but it’s quite possible that many viewers would have come to this special simply not knowing. To be honest, the pre-publicity was a bit muddled. Did they want to keep it a surprise (in which case why bother with the exterminate in the trailer?) or did they want to make it must watch tv (in which case why not call the episode Resolution of the Daleks, and be done with it?)

I might as well start by saying I adored this episode. It’s clearly the best episode of the Chris Chibnall era so far, and probably the best Dalek story since 2008’s The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End. In almost every way possible, it’s your archetypal Doctor Who story - it has humour, wit, science fiction wizardry, body horror and thrilling adventure. It simply oozes what some fans might call ‘the magic of Doctor Who’.

So, what is it that makes the episode so pure in its Doctor Who-ness? It’s hard to put a finger on it, but from the very beginning it feels very special and epic - the likes of which we haven’t seen for some time, with high stakes, multiple exotic locations and a TARDIS hurtling through the time vortex so many times that it puts one in mind of The Chase (the 1965 Hartnell, not the Bradley Walsh ITV game show). And weren’t those vortex shots simply stunning? Particularly the final shot of the episode with the TARDIS point of view dematerialisation from the Sheffield sewers – the police box remains in situ as its Earthly surroundings dissolve and re-emerge as the time vortex. The programme has never attempted such a shot before, and it looks amazing. Noteworthy too was the scene where Mitch (Nikesh Patel) first enters the ship just before it sets off into space. Look carefully at the internal police box doors and we see the exterior dissolve into the swirling lights of the time vortex - beautiful and unique attention to detail that I hope to see more of in series 12.

Jon Pertwee once commented that monsters are far scarier when they come down to Earth, for example the often quoted Yeti on a loo in Tooting Bec. It’s the contrast of the ordinary and the extraordinary, and we certainly get that in this episode where Lin hunts down a Dalek mutant out it it’s shell, and in the process is taken over by it. Charlotte Ritchie portrays Lin with a gentle confidence that we are used to seeing on Call The Midwife, contrasting nicely with her portrayal of a cold hearted and hate infused Dalek. There are several pieces of pure Doctor Who iconography in these early scenes with a Dalek squid on the lose tracked down by torch lights in the sewers (Resurrection of the Daleks), a ‘something on your back’ moment for Lin as the Dalek mutant glues itself to her body and takes over her mind (in a style of a Metebelis III spider, or a trickster insect from Turn Left). ‘Pure Doctor Who’ too is the disembodied voice of Nicholas Briggs who once again provides a powerful and unique version of a Dalek voice. The out of its shell version of the voice is quite different from our regular Dalek and adds a raw something to the species we’ve not seen before.

The plot itself is an interesting and new one. It’s a simple idea, and in some ways is a reversal of what we’ve seen before. Rather than being presented first with the outer casing of a Dalek and then being confronted with the full horror of the monster inside, here we start with the Dalek’s true form and follow its journey to find a new casing. This concept provides us with plenty of mileage for that contrast of ordinary versus extraordinary as we witness a very likeable human being taken over by the insanity of a Dalek. There are some nice interplays between the Lin Dalek and more minor characters that offer us humour whilst at the same time sustain the drama and provide the necessary before mentioned contrast. Each small character (much like in The Woman Who Fell to Earth) feels unique despite their small number of lines - the weary ‘how are you spelling that?’ traffic policeman, the ‘most secured digits in Yorkshire’ police newbie at work, the farmer who fears the police are out to arrest him for having dodgy knockoff gear in his shed. It’s this sense of humour and realism that made The Woman Who Fell to Earth feel so new and different, and it was perhaps lacking in the series 11 episodes seen since.

The Dalek infected Lin also provides for our 13th Doctor’s first contact with a creature from Skaro to be an all-female affair. There’s a lovely face to face via hologram moment in the TARDIS that evokes memories of Parting of the Ways (Have a good life, Rose Tyler) and the Bad Wolf bay departure scene in Doomsday. There are also a couple of other enjoyable throwback moments to past episodes. We finally get an explicit rather than implied explanation as to why the Daleks we see in the second ever Dalek story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, are more advanced than those we saw in their first serial. Plus, there’s a lovely comic moment where the Doctor, having been warned that the Dalek fleet will be ready to attack Earth in 9,376 Rels, stops to ponder - ‘now, must remember - how long’s a Rel?’ We’ve all wondered that from time to time, let’s be honest.

For an episode that’s actually pretty scary with bags of body horror and a high death count, there are quite a lot of funny moments in this episode, another notable one being the TARDIS’s arrival in Graham’s house, and wallop goes his dining chair! It’s been 55 years, and I’ve often wondered how the TARDIS has managed to avoid landing on top of things before. We also get a funny and seemingly controversial BREXIT joke where the Doctor attempts to call up UNIT HQ for help and is dutifully told by a Call Centre Polly (nice comic performance from Laura Evelyn) that due to lack of cooperation from international partners, UNIT operations have been suspended. It seems that in this regeneration, the Doctor will no longer be UNIT’s ‘President of Earth’ - she’s all on her own from now on.

Moving on to the Dalek itself, we are kept waiting for its full appearance for some 40 minutes, which only serves to build up anticipation. This time we are getting a new, if transitory, steampunk look for the Dalek casing. It’s a clever reference back to the start of Series 11 as we juxtapose the 13th Doctor’s joyful creation of her new sonic screwdriver out of a mix of Stenza technology and Sheffield Steel, with Dalek Lin soldering together Skaro technology with knockoff stolen farm equipment.

The new Dalek itself certainly impresses. It is immediately powerful and menacing. We’ve already seen how creepy it is out of its casing, so it only adds to the scare factor to see what it might do complete with its full Dalek armoury. Jodie Whittaker demonstrates a mix of Doctor-ish mockery and gravitas in her first confrontation with the Dalek. Whilst it not have the depth of Christopher Eccleston’s iconic first meeting in 2005’s Dalek, it should certainly reassure any doubters that a female Doctor is just as much an ongoing storm for the Skarosians as any of her male predecessors.

A particularly powerful scene is the next one where the Dalek flies into a confrontation with the British army and immediately guns them all down in a series of explosions and exterminates. Segun Akinola, too, provides a powerful new musical theme for the Daleks using electric rock guitars to create a tone of menace and Dalek determination.

A nice subplot for the episode provides us with the opportunity to meet much talked about Ryan’s Dad, Aaron (played by Daniel Adegboyega) and understand more fully his estranged relationship not only with his son Ryan but also his step father Graham. There’s some nice and very believable character stuff here, notably again touching on the pain of bereavement. I was particularly moved by Graham’s recollection of his own Dad throwing away all his Mum’s possessions after she died, as the only way he knew how to deal with it - that’s very real. It’s nice too, to see the 13th Doctor standing up for Ryan when she confronts Aaron for not attending Grace’s funeral and letting his son down. As throughout the rest of the series, the Doctor is providing a very clear moral stance here. The only problem with these scenes if they feel a little bit elongated, with most of the audience probably screaming at their television sets wanting to get back to some cool Dalek action. Nonetheless, the sub-plot does merge rather nicely with the main plot at the end of the episode, as Ryan’s Dad makes up for past failings by helping to destroy the Dalek with his microwave oven. It’s quite a powerful scene at the end of the episode when, in true Enemy of the World style, Ryan pulls Aaron back from the open doors of the TARDIS as the Dalek mutant on his back gets sucked into a supernova.

Whilst this isn’t Yaz’s episode (we need more for her in Serie 12, really), it is nice to see her growing in confidence and demonstrating assertiveness. Notably, there’s an early scene in the sewers where Yaz calmly and authoritatively instructs Lin and Mitch to leave the scene while the Doctor and her friends investigate. No need for the psychic paper here.

A final word for the nice and subtle romantic relationship that blossoms into a crescendo at the end of the episode for MItch and Lin. The final moment of the 2 of them holding hands whilst the TARDIS de-materialises is a lovely way to end this first year of Doctor Who.
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Resolution, then is Doctor Who at its purest for quite some time, avoiding the excesses and novelty of both the social commentary we’ve seen in Series 11 and the complex timey whimey arc driven narrative of the Steven Moffatt era. It’s the kind of episode where I found myself screaming a joyful ‘YES’ at my television set several times. This is exactly what Doctor Who should be at its core.

With Resolution the first series of a new Doctor Who era goes out on a high. But does this episode represent an attempt to steer the programme into a slightly new direction and fix some of the issues that have been labelled at Series 11? Or with this being a special, is it just s sidestep? Time will tell whether the resolution of the title signifies a permanent new direction for the Chris Chibnall era, or whether like a lot of other resolutions, it’s something that is only going to last until the end of New Year’s Day. ​

​Ever since Doctor Who returned to British television in a blaze of glory back in 2005, we have been treated with, and perhaps come to expect, ever more blockbuster series finales each year. But in truth there’s only so far the programme can go along that route without burning out.

We certainly know from pre-publicity interviews that Chris Chibnall wanted to simplicity things down this year - no returning baddies, no complex series arcs, no more timey whimey. So, with that in mind, maybe it was inevitable that the Series 11 finale The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos was going to feel like a bit of a let-down. The problems with this episode, however, run deeper than just lacking a big bang or any kind of journeys end. Where it fails is that it doesn’t actually follow through on any of the core messages or themes of the series and so leaves the audience a little bit cold and without a sense of their investment fulfilled. It’s also wildly unrelatable, leaving the audience struggling to identify with any of the episode’s characters, other than the series regulars who we already know. This is particularly disappointing as series 11 has made a strong effort to create believable scenarios and pull in the casual non-fan audience. And seriously who thought a name like Ranskoor Av Kolos might be even remotely relatable for the programme’s casual audience? OK, RTD gave us weird and unpronounceable planet names but Raxacoricofallapatorius was so outlandish as to be funny to everyone, not just those with a sci fi leaning.

On the one hand, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos feels like it’s trying be epic, with the surprise reveal of returning new monster Tim Shaw, the titular promise of a grand battle, and a showdown between Graham and the nemesis who murdered his wife. But on the other it wants to subvert expectations and give us a tale that’s rather more mundane, almost like any old mid-season story. It’s as though Chris Chibnall couldn’t decide on whether to end the series by quietly resolving some character dynamics in a simple science fiction tale, or whether to emulate the style of finales so far and give us a grand and spectacular send off with audience pleasing fireworks and thrills. In the end we get an odd hybrid (no, not that kind of hybrid, series 8 fans), which doesn’t succeed at either.

One of the most obvious failings of this so-called finale, is that it promises so much and delivers so little. If you are going to name an episode after a battle, it’s probably a good idea to have some actual scenes of fighting, rather than just talk about it. Otherwise it just comes across as an anti-climax.

Another fairly obvious misstep, in terms of setting us up and then not delivering on expectations, is the fact that there are 9 SOS calls. So that’s 9 calls, 9 episodes so far, and 9 villains who actually didn’t get killed off and might be out there still risking havoc (Tim Shaw, The Remnants, Krasko, Roberston, Pting, Manish, the Kerb!am organisation, the Morax, and the Solitact). It makes me wonder whether the original idea for the series was indeed to have a comeuppance for the 9 villains in episode 10, but somewhere along the script edit, it was forgotten about.

It all starts going wrong in the opening scene, really. I remember an interview with Russell T Davies back in 2006 where he said the worst thing you can do in a modern Doctor Who story is start an episode with some strange aliens walking around a quarry babbling the kind of pseudo religious scientific mumbo jumbo that means absolutely nothing to a casual viewer and who could be easily tempted away by a The X Factor on ITV. Well, this is exactly what we got in this episode. Phyllis Logan is criminally wasted in this episode. She is one of Britain’s finest actresses and yet all she has written for her in this episode is to be some kind of weird telepathic alien without a lot of depth.

The other thing a series finale might want to do is underline certain themes that have been raised throughout the series. There is an attempt at that here, with Tim Shaw’s appetite for revenge being a direct consequence of the Doctor allowing him to escape at the end of episode 1. The 9-planet genocide is perhaps on the Doctor’s head here, and maybe it’s an opportunity at last to give some weight and inner conflict to the character of the Doctor. But ‘consequences’ hasn’t really been a theme or something that’s been set up throughout Series 11, and once raised here its soon forgotten about without making a mark. So, it ends up feeling rather inconsequential. For me, a key theme of this series has been the villainy not of monsters off world, but the monstrousness we find in ourselves and on our own planet - but that isn’t touched on at all here.

Having said all this, it’s not a bad episode. It’s fun, with a decent threat. It is actually quite different from the rest of Series 11 because there is little in the sense of any social issue to discuss or contend with, and that’s kind of OK because sometimes it’s nice to watch a bit of straight forward and lightweight science fiction. Jodie Whittaker once again provides a confident portrayal as the Doctor. 10 episodes in, her performance is less hyper than at the start of the series, and it feels more unique and individual - less a copy of David Tennant and Matt Smith. She has a real gravitas as she faces off against Tim Shaw and also as she lays down a clear boundary to Graham. ‘If you do that you can’t travel with me’ she warns him. However, 10 episodes in and we haven’t had much depth or a sense of inner conflict. All the Doctors since 2005 have had plenty of their own demons to contend with, whether that be the loneliness of immortal Time Lord existence, Time War guilt, or the Doctor’s rumination to discover whether he is ‘a good man’. Whilst this might be part of a longer plan to return the Doctor to a simpler character of fun, it has meant that the she has come across as rather one dimensional - and that’s not so good when introducing a new and outwardly quite different version of the protagonist. Let’s hope for more depth in Series 12 as an actress of Jodie’s capability might get bored if she’s not given something far more interesting to do.

We do see some inner conflict for Graham however. Tim Shaw turning up has triggered anger and resentment as a consequence to Grace’s death at his hands. Following the Doctor’s clear issuing of a boundary that if Graham exacts revenge then she cannot have him onboard the TARDIS, Graham is able to overcome his need for vengeance, and this acts as a fitting contrast to Tim Shaw’s inability to let his own vengeance go. It’s a nice couple of scenes demonstrating Graham’s internal struggles, outlining again the Doctor’s clear sense of morality, and showing how far Graham and Ryan have come in their travels in the TARDIS.

As a sum up, this is quite an odd mix of an episode, feeling like a story that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. There are a few interesting character interactions, though, and some inspiration from Douglas Adam’s The Pirate Planet. Sadly that comparison only goes to demonstrate how much more interesting and tonally consistent the Pirate Captain, Mr.Fibuli and the Mentiads were compared to this.

I might have felt kinder to the episode if it had left us on a cliff-hanger for New Year’s Day - something to get excited about. As it stands, however, this episode feels rather more like a filler than a finale. The truth is, maybe that was all it was ever intended to be. With the possible return of a classic series villain just weeks away, maybe Resolution will be the real firework display we are waiting for, and maybe this new version of Doctor Who is just aiming for something a little less arc driven and explosive. But I hope not.

When Doctor Who started back in 1963, one of its remits was to tell 3 types of narrative: Earth based historicals, science fiction stories set on alien or future worlds, and a 3rd category - something that might be considered a little more unusual. Throughout both the original and new run of Doctor Who, the series has occasionally dipped into places beyond space and time – be that through triolgic games with the immortal Celestial Toymaker, white voids in the Land of Fiction or Warriors Gate, the parallel universe of Inferno, an alternative rise of the Cybermen in Pete’s world, or a Buddhist religious allegory of the Mara as ‘dark force of the inside’ on Deva Loka. These stories are experimental -designed to subvert expectants and challenge our thinking.

Series 11 was designed to showcase the breadth of what Doctor Who could do, according to showrunner Chris Chibnall, and so it’s no surprise that at some point during its 10-episode run, we’d be presented with a story that doesn’t quite fit into a neat category or follow one of the programmes more traditional set of sub-genre conventions. We get that with It Takes You Away, although it does take just a little while for that to become completely clear, with the opening scenes setting us up for what looks to be a more traditional base under siege yarn meets Norwegian thriller. The story then takes several unexpected turns as the opening threat of an abandoned girl left all alone in a boarded-up house and terrified by a monster in the woods is revealed as a red herring. We are then catapulted (via a portal in a mirror) into a Hansel and Gretel type never-where between 2 worlds before finely escaping back through the mirror and into an existential mirror universe where we come face to face with the biggest mystery of all – the possibility of life after death.

This episode is in fact 3 stories for the price of 1, with different settings, plot twists and about-turns making for quite an unusual narrative structure. But it all works – and a key element that holds the disparate parts together is a sense that this is in fact Doctor Who’s version of a fairy tale, with lots of iconography that should resonate with the audience (even if, subconsciously). The girl in the woods is reminiscent of Little Red Riding Hood, we have a scary goblin in the form of Ribbons, and of course the finale provides us with the now infamous frog. The Doctor even blows a kiss at the Solitract frog as she leaves. Depending on your point of view about gender identification in the newest version of Doctor Who, maybe the frog turning into a prince at the end might have been a step too far. But then, there’s always the possibility of a sequel when Twitter sensibilities have perhaps calmed down a notch or two.

Back to the start of the episode and we get some beautiful cinematography in those opening scenes – I’m assuming the story was filmed in Cardiff, and yet surely those look very much like real fjords, and it really is Norway? Considering the episode was actually filmed 2nd in production order, the Doctor and her companions feel remarkably at ease in each other’s company and very much come across as a group who have travelled together for some time. For all the criticism labelled at Series 11 for its lack of regular cast character development, this demonstrates a lot of care and attention to detail from both the actors and directors - which while probably not picked up on by the majority of viewers is the kind of thing that would have been noticeable if it had been missing.

After bumping into a few non-rebellious sheep (phew!), the Doctor and her friends meet Hanne (played by Ellie Wallwork) – our aforementioned abandoned girl in the woods. Whilst these early scenes set up the apparent plot and mystery confidently, what comes across most noticeably for me is a real sense of humanity expressed by the regular cast - it’s really quite shocking for a teenage girl to be left apparently deserted by her father, and there’s a real sense that the Doctor and Yaz have a real sense of care and empathy towards Hanne – they really feel her situation. This is in direct contrast to Ryan, who’s ham fisted attempt to show concern is distorted by his own prejudice about dads who let down their children. The Doctor is at her most human in these scenes, which makes for a nice contract to the eccentric adrenalin rush we see for a lot of her time on screen. In fact, she’s quite Troughton-esque in many of these early scenes, juxtapositioning a hyperactive clownishness with a parental warmth. I’m reminded in part by the 2nd Doctor’s tender concern for Victoria in Tomb of the Cybermen.

Hanne’s blindness provides an added depth and richness to the proceedings. It isn’t central to the plot by any means. Hanne doesn’t need to be blind to make the story work. On the one hand it is consistent with this year’s efforts to showcase diversity, and on the other it provides for some interesting character dynamics and exchanges about what it means to be blind and an individual’s need to be independent in spite of a disability.
One aspect of the plot that did take me a little by surprise was the Doctor’s decision (and her companions’ collusion) to lie to Hanne by writing instructions up on the wall. What kind of message is that giving? We are left with the conclusion that she is being misled by the Doctor because the Doctor can get away with it, not because she’s a child who needs to be protected.

When we move into the middle Anti-Zone section, the narrative shifts sharply. We think that the new character Ribbons (played admirably and you’d never know it because he’s under heavy makeup by Nighty Night star Kevin Eldon), might turn out to be the central villain of the piece. But as it turns out, he is just a side character too – but one oozing with personality (and probably body sweat). I rather liked the scenes in the Anti-Zone, and I enjoyed Kevin Eldon’s performance as odorous trickster Ribbons especially. We don’t know where Ribbons or the vampiric moths have come from, other than from perhaps the writer’s deepest and darkest imagination. This is more like the magic world of Wizards versus Aliens and Harry Potter than real world science we normally associate with Doctor Who.

When the characters emerge from the anti-zone into the 3rd and final segment, we seem to be back to where we started. Except look carefully and you’ll see that everything is shot in mirror image. It’s quite a subtle and clever trick, and I don’t believe it’s ever explicitly referred to in dialogue. We do however get a payoff from an earlier scene where Hanne refers to her Arctic Monkeys t-shirt as belonging to her mother – in the Solitract world, Hanne’s mother, Trine, is seen wearing the very same t-shirt, but with logo reversed. It’s kind of a shame that the 13th Doctor is no longer wearing the question marks of her 5th incarnation. It had been a long time since we saw reversed question marks on the Doctor. Not since the zero room in Castrovalva in fact (except if you happen to be watching the new effects version on the Doctor Who Season 19 Blu-ray).

The episode reaches an emotional height when Graham is presented with the apparent return of Grace, alive and well in the Solitract universe. Once again, Bradley Walsh delivers a tone perfect performance in these scenes as does Sharon D Clarke. The idea that someone might have returned from the dead is a tempting concept explored multiple times in contemporary film - I’m reminded of Ghost and Truly Madly Deeply for example here. Its notable that when Hanne comes through into the mirror universe, she isn’t convinced by her mother being alive at all. So maybe the Solitract is using visual memory to convince, or maybe because Hanne is blind, her other senses are heightened. It isn’t explained in the episode, and it doesn’t actually have to be.

It’s a lovely moment at the end of the episode where Ryan finally decides to call Graham ‘grandad’, and a nice payoff after 9 episodes of travelling together for Graham to have finally earned his new grandson’s respect. It’s something I wasn’t expecting but it goes to show how close Ryan and Graham have come in their journey through bereavement and their adventures with the Doctor in the TARDIS. These are nice understated scenes, and quite moving. That Graham is notably affected by his meeting with Grace is particularly upsetting to watch, and incredibly true to the reality of losing a loved one.

Ed Hime’s script is an intelligent piece of television with bags of ideas, a fast-paced plot that is impossible to get bored with and also some delightful dialogue. There’s a lovely new take on the 3rd Doctor’s famous ‘Reverse the Polarity’ line when, in a moment where the sonic screwdriver seems to be failing in the mirror universe, Yaz desperately suggests ‘what if it had a setting that could reverse the polarity or something?’ Whilst its lovely to have call backs to famous bits of Doctor Who dialogue, its far cleverer to do something new with it, as here.
It’s interesting to watch Yaz and the Doctor’s relationship grow this series. Whilst the emphasis in Series 11 has been Graham and Ryan’s step grandad/step grandson story, and their journey through bereavement, there’s another subtler tale with Yaz’s hero worship of the Doctor. Yaz clearly admires the Doctor greatly. We’ve seen companions fall in love with the Doctor before, and it would certainly be an interesting development to see this from a female to female point of view. Arachnids in the UK suggested that Yaz might be gay or bisexual, and of course there’s nothing to make us think that just because the Doctor has changed gender that she has stopped fancying women. So, it’ll be interesting to see where that might go in Series 12.

The final scene of the Doctor and Kermit (sorry, the Solitract frog) has provoked a lot of hate on social media – but hey, doesn’t everything these days? But you know what – I loved it. The frog looked pretty realistic on my television set. Frankly anything grand and god-like would have seemed very out of place. Whilst the plot might have had certain similarities to The Three Doctors, the tone of the episode is quite different and there isn’t room for the melodrama of Omega’s often quoted ‘I should have been a GOD!’ here. A frog meanwhile is a simplistic fairy tale image that speaks volumes about the Solitract’s loneliness, love of the real universe and its sense of loneliness and isolation. Jodie Whittaker too plays this scene delightfully, once again wearing the Doctor’s morality on her sleeve, gushing about the wondrousness of the real universe, and demonstrating compassion for the Solitract she must leave behind.

Segun Akinola once again provides a wonderfully atmospheric and emotional musical score (one of his best this series) using, I think, cellos. I never thought Doctor Who would find a composer compatible in quality to Murray Gold but Segun gives us a musical feast every week and I’m certainly looking forward to the release of the soundtrack in January 2019.

Overall a really strong story, one of the best of Series 11, and one of the best penultimate stories of the modern era.

Final words go to what might have been a certain premonition provided by Russell T Davies in his recent Target novelisation - Rose. As many fans will know, RTD used his novel to re-imagine and expand the scene in Clive’s shed where Rose is presented with evidence of exactly who is the Doctor. In the TV version, we just see the 9th Doctor superimposed throughout history – the assassination of JFK, the sinking of the Titanic etc. But in the book, Russell T Davies adds all the previous Doctors, as well as future Doctors. It’s noticeable the way that Russell describes a photograph of an adventure for the 13th Doctor here as ‘a blond woman in braces running away from a giant frog in front of Buckingham Palace’. So, what did RTD know? Nothing most probably. Except perhaps he’s good at understanding what might be popular and resonate with a modern audience. So perhaps there’s more to tell for this particular 2018 fairy tale of the 13th Doctor and the Solitract’s love for amphibians? I bet Twitter can’t wait.

Doctor Who has already done a couple of very successful historical stories this year, but the tone of each of the 2 so far has been resolutely serious. The Witchfinders, by contrast is more of a traditional Doctor Who romp, combining charismatic guest characters with a great premise and fabulously creepy, muddy, stalking monsters – although to be pedantic, the Morax are rather more in the category of the ‘walking dead’ than the the witches we might have expected from the title. There are no The Shakespeare Code style Carrionites here.

Once again, as with the majority of Series 11, it is beautifully filmed. Despite the apparent weather challenges during filming back in February (only a few are visible on screen, including snow if you look carefully - freak weather conditions anyone?) the production succeeds in making the town, manor house and surrounding woods evoke the spirit of 17th century world Lancashire. With just a little bit of help from a photoshopped shot of the actual Pendle Hill. The probably very real rain and mist serve to add to the atmosphere and help create the general tone of witchy creepiness.

The 2 principle guest stars are, for my money, the best of Series 11 so far (excluding perhaps Grace who in some ways we can think of as companion who got killed off early). Siobhan Finneran is in her element as Becka Savage – she’s one of the UK’s finest actress, and clearly relishes the opportunity to play a baddie in Doctor Who. There’s lots of sparring with the Doctor, and her villainy comes across as quite old school ‘classic series’ in many ways. She’s given some lovely melodramatic dialogue. One of my favourites - ‘We shall save the souls of my people from Satan – even if it means killing them ALL!

Not only does Siobhan get to play one of the human villains this week, but she also gets the chance to play a proper Doctor Who monster when Becka Savage is transformed into the fabulously muddy Morax Queen for the final act. But even she is outshone by Alan Cumming’s simply mesmerising King James. It’s always fun to see how closely the celebrity historicals align to the charcaters from the history books. Here, King James is portrayed as dramatic, narcissitic, bloodthirsty, camp and emotionally damaged. That’s a lot for Alan Cumming to get his teeth into, and his portrayal covers this range perfectly. It starts as it means to go on with an outlandish entrance and unveiling – ‘Forgive the mask, I have enemies and have to travel ignognito – plus I rather enjoy the drama’. Frankly it’s worthy of Anthony Ainley’s Master.

2 scenes of note for King James (although these are many) include a heart to heart with his ‘Nubian Prince’ Ryan in the woods about their shared experiences of bereavement - even though James’ story is so hilarious and hideous in its melodrama that it makes Ryan laugh out loud on the spot. And then later, a more subtle performance during his 1 to 1 with a roped up Doctor, just before her trial for witchcraft. This is a captivating and magical scene, perhaps the strongest of Series 11 to date. The Doctor seems to get to the heart of what drives King James’ narcissitic cruelty - an abandonment wound from childhood which has left him with a need to project evil onto others in the form of scapegoating, and in particular this witch-hunt. There’s a moment (beautifully conveyed by Alan Cumming with just a look) where King James might even be tempted to agree with the Doctor and let her go. And again this is evident during the actual ‘witch dunking’ as we watch James itching to end the trial early and save the Doctor’s life, in spite of Becka’s insistence that the drowning should be completeted. Beneath the camp outlandish extravagances of King James is a man in pain - although better not dig too deeply at Doctor Who’s own history, in case we remember that it was the Doctor’s one-time wife Elisabeth the First who was in fact responsible for the the murder of James’ mum - Mary Queen of Scots!

It’s the high camp melodrama that we remember most from Alan Cumming’s performance though - it’s classic series ‘end of episode cliffhanger’ acting at its best, and wouldn’t be at all out of place in Blackadder.

A major theme of the episode is the human tendancy to project what we don’t like about ourselves on to others. King James and Becka Savage are justifying their witch-hunt using God as an excuse (a nice reference to the King James Bible here) but for the Doctor, Becka’s quotation tfrom the Old Testament Bible about ‘not suffering a witch to live’ doesn’t convince - ‘There’s a sequal to that – Love thy neighbour’ quips the Doctor in a reference to the more humane morality of the New Testament.

The episode is full of sparking dialogue – easily the best of a series which hasn’t displayed the quick witted humour that we had come to expect from (and be spoilt by) the pen of first Russell T Davies and then Steven Moffat.

The Doctor in this episode is the most physical we’ve seen since The Woman Who Fell To Earth. I rather like seeing the Doctor ‘move’ and so it’s kind of nice to see her swimming in this episode - twice. Plus with a strong guest cast too, Jodie Whittaker has something good to act against. I’d say she’s at her most Doctorish so far in this episode.

This is the first story where the Doctor being a woman really counts, and influences the narrative. Inevitably for an episode about scapegoating women, the Doctor is going to get accused of being a witch. But also she’s seen as a victim of society’s casual sexism and King James’ overt misogyny.

What is lacking, however, for me, is the sense of any real relationship between our new Doctor and her 3 companions. Over the course of the 8 episodes to date we have got to know Graham, Ryan and Yaz quite well – but we don’t really have a sense of what the Doctor thinks about them as individuals, or what they think about her. One of the hallmarks of post 2005 Doctor Who is the relationship between Doctor and companion – we get a lot more depth from observing the Doctor through human eyes, and we get to see the companions grow and change by seeing how they interact with the Doctor. We just aren’t getting that, this series - yet.

Yasmin has some lovely scenes with Willa and it’s a nice touch to parallel Yaz’s memories of being bullied at school with the central theme of the episode. Ryan, too, gets some good stuff with King James (and even an offer to go with him to London as his new ‘protector’). But for most of the episode, the 3 of them come across as spare parts. The problem is that the TARDIS is just too crowded. Maybe what’s needed this year is the return of the delta wave augmenter, to put a companion to sleep for a while and to perhaps avoid the temptation for Jodie Whittaker to wave the sonic screwdriver around at every and any possible occasion.

Overall a fun historical romp, more reminiscent of the RTD era ‘celebrity historicals’, proudly wearing its camp melodrama on its sleeve, but with an undercurrent of believable characters who have a dark and emotional backstory. The episode had a fantastic guest cast and good, if rather basic zombie monsters. The episode will perhaps though, be best remembered for Alan Cumming’s stunning performance as King James.

Quite a traditional tale, with a traditional end scene too - that of 2 locals staring open mouthed at the TARDIS as it dematerialises. From departing scenes in Curse of Peladon to The Unquiet Dead, we’ve had our fun over the years watching ordinary primitive folk marvel at the sight of a TARDIS disappearing before their eyes.

But as per the parting words of the Doctor, and with a nice reference to Arthur C Clarke – ‘ as a brilliant man once said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’.

The opening TARDIS scene of this week’s episode set the tone for a really colourful, cheeky and futuristic sci-fi episode. To the Doctor’s childlike delight, a Kerblam! (or is it Kerb!am?) robot postman pops onboard the TARDIS with a bubble wrapped surprise for her. It’s a fez - ordered from the galaxy’s largest retailer and in a nice (and these days much rarer) nod to the previous Eleventh Doctor era, one she ordered whilst in the body of Matt Smith. We encounter more of the same robots when the time travellers arrive on a moon orbiting the planet Kandoka, now acting as one gigantic warehouse and despatch centre. With their doll-like blank faces and just-a-little-bit too charming hypnotic voices, the robots make for a classic Doctor Who monster, reminding long term viewers of 1977’s Robots of Death and the Heavenly Angels from the more recent Voyage of the Damned (2007). But there’s also something eerily comic about their appearance, with shades of the Sylvester McCoy season 24 era of the programme - some on Twittersville seeing reminders of the bus conductor from The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

The Doctor has found a ‘help me’ SOS note on the back of the packing slip inside her fez delivery box, and so she and her friends go undercover as workers at the warehouse moon colony, with the goal of identifying who exactly needs help, and what from. It’s nice to see the regular cast here acting as a team, with each of them having something to do – we are introduced to the guest cast through their eyes. Yaz in particular has a nice relationship with Dan Cooper (played by Lee Mack) which, whilst short lived, has a touching payoff in the final scene as a tearful Yaz requests that they visit Dan’s 6 year old daughter to give her her Dad’s pendant and tell her how much she loved him. It’s nice to see how the impact of a minor character’s death affects one of the TARDIS crew, although it’s a shame maybe that we didn’t actually see the meeting.

The majority of the narrative is taken up with the mystery of the ‘help me’ note. The Doctor and her friends find out that the some of 10% organic (for that read ‘human’) workforce have gone missing, possibly dead, and that the human management team might be trying to cover things up.

The suspicion is firmly pointed at the robot workforce and / or the human management team - in the world of Doctor Who never trust steely fazed robots, and never trust humans in authority. Quite early on, we are led to believe that Yaz’s new colleague Dan Cooper, has been murdered by one of the robots – although this isn’t shown on screen, of course. And whilst we get several creepy camera shots of the robots’ blank expressionless eyes and slowly turning mechanical heads, it’s all done with a rather light touch – so its not worth much in terms of making the robots seem menacing - it’s almost as though we are asked to rely on our collective memories of similarly menacing robots from Doctor Who’s folklore. In fact, the sinister atmosphere is created almost exclusively by Segun Akinola’s incidental music. The direction and cinematography feels rather tame. There aren’t enough creepy shots of robots advancing on humans, nor do we ever see a creepy robot point of view. Take a look back at Robots of Death and Voyage of the Damned for comparison.

The first half of the episode lacks momentum, in my view – and the stakes are not noticeable rising. We have lots going on with the Doctor and her friends trying to identify who the victims and perpetrators might be, a little too much exposition, and the occasional power failure, but this doesn’t add up to much tension. The human management team don’t really do an awful lot to make us feel they might be responsible and neither do the robots, so there isn’t much for the audience to grab hold of. We are told about, rather than see, people going missing.

Early on in the episode we meet Judy Maddox, Head of of People, played by Julie Hesmondhalgh. Julie gives a nice performance as a sensitive, jovial and open sort of person, and even though the Doctor gives her a hard time, there’s no real sense that she might be hiding a darker side or acting duplicitously. As a character, like all the others in this episode, Judy come across as rather one dimensional. For an actress of Julie’s reputation, it’s a bit disappointing not to have more complexity, especially as this episode was essentially a mystery – and we needed some red herrings and suspicions to keep us engaged.

Kira, played by Claudia Jessie, is another one-dimensional character who’s only apparent motivation is to be happy to have a fairly rubbish job and be grateful for the one present she ever received – and even that was from her boss! She didn’t even knew her mum and dad, and the Doctor’s completely unexpected response to Kira is that she has ‘a good attitude to life’. It seems as though the workforce in this warehouse don’t have much of an actual life to have an attitude about. I’ve written a lot about the portrayal of the 13th Doctor’s morality in these blogs, and so her reaction is quite surprising. The Doctor of old would have been angry on Kira’s behalf, seeing her situation really as no more than a form of capitalist slavery. It’s really not that different a situation to the willing compliance of the Ood back in the 10th Doctor era.

It’s nice, however that the ‘good attitude’ scene is immediately followed up by the Doctor giving Mr.Slade a good telling off, for his very obvious bullying of Kira. Seriously, the bullying I’ve seen in workplaces has been a hell of a lot subtler than what we see here – so it all felt rather on the nose to me. Similarly, Dan Cooper is seen as a victim of consumerist slavery too – he only gets to seen his daughter twice a year and has sacrificed much of his life for the sake of having a job, and some money to provide for his family. Whilst these early scenes are no doubt intended to help us understand the struggle of a human civilisation adapting to a world where most of the manual labour can be done by machines, it’s a muddled message because of the Doctor and her friends simply accept the status quo, and in the Doctor’s case, she suggests that the best response is positive, passive acceptance. If the Doctor doesn’t challenge the status quo, then why should the audience?

The episode concludes with the clever revelation that it is actually a worker, Charlie the maintenance boy (played by Kira Arlo) who is responsible for the disappearances and quite gruesome deaths of the workers at Kerblam. Charlie is basically a terrorist and is planning to kill thousands of Kerblam customers in the hope of getting the people of Kandoka to rise up against the machine and get them their jobs back. The problem here, however, lies in characterisation, again. Up to this point, Charlie is shown to be a shy, innocent and reasonably well-adjusted young man who has a secret crush on co-worker Kira. There’s no real hint of his apparent sociopathic tendencies – except a line about the way Kira ‘smells’. As written on the page, alongside Charlie’s isolation at work, this might have been intended to suggest a disturbed mind, but the way it’s played doesn’t help that come across. Charlie doesn’t fit the profile of what we know about terrorists. I wonder if the intention (possibly from the direction) was to underplay some of the dialogue, but unfortunately perhaps it’s a bit too subtle because when Charlie is revealed as the killer it seems to come completely from left field, and therefore feels a little unlikely. Compare this to the previous week’s Demons of the Punjab where Manish’s motivation and twisted mind is much more realistically shown. Obviously the intention this week is for the revelation to be a surprise, but without sufficient character build up, the pay off doesn’t work.

The motivation of the intelligent computer system running Kerblam is questionable too. It wanted to kill Kira simply to demonstrate to Charlie that it’s not nice when someone you love dies. Really? OK, I can accept that it’s predominantly just a retail system, and therefore doesn’t have the necessary psychological mapping algorithms, but it doesn’t take a lot of working out to see that empathy isn’t something that’s going to convince a terrorist. Perhaps things would have come across a little better if we’d had the Doctor explain that the computer system is acting using a twisted logic rather than any true artificial intelligence.

Charlie’s demise, too, feels like a cop out. The Doctor provides him with a get out via teleport so that he can escape from the poison that is about to be released from his bubble wrap bombs, but he simply decides not to run into the safety of the teleport range – for no apparent reason other than he might have been (although this isn’t made clear) paralysed with shock. It just comes across as a convenient way of avoiding any consequence for the character. It would have been better if we could have seen him led away and face justice, wouldn’t it? The Kerblam system too also needed to face a consequence. What kind of system is it that commits murder in the hope of teaching a terrorist empathy? It would have been nice for the Doctor to have followed up her speech about robophobia in the opening moments with a conclusion that both humans and machines need to take responsibility for their actions.

On a more positive note, the episode is an entertaining 50 minutes, with the Doctor and her friends throwing themselves into a new world with enthusiasm and a desire to ‘help out where they can’. I did enjoy the episode, in spite of my qualms, which are mostly about the lack of clear character motivation and narrative drive. The world we are presented with is believable as a kind of semi-dystopian future where robots are so ingrained into society that they are threatening the livelihood of ordinary working-class people. The tone, which is fairly light, but with a gentle political / allegorical edge is reminiscent of the early Sylvester McCoy era. In fact, in a week where we discover that the Christmas Day traditional episode is being swapped out for a New Year’s Day special, it’s ironic that with a few small changes (snow on the planet’s moon, Christmas themed robots, Christmas wrapping paper for the presents) it could easily have made a passable festive episode. We even tend to forgive plot holes on Christmas Day.

A stated promise for Series 11 is that it should deliver on variety, demonstrating the entire range of what Doctor Who can do. Of all the presents we’ve opened up so far this series, Kerblam! comes across as the most disposable, and my least favourite. It’s certainly a fun romp for the younger audience with fun but scary robot monsters, but coming as it did, after the much darker and character led Demons of the Punjab, it feels rather lacking. And whilst it might be enjoyable enough when first opened, it’s an insubstantial present that probably won't be given a second viewing.

A few weeks ago, Rosa set the tone for what we might expect from historicals in the Chris Chibnall era – character led, more seriously toned stories, exploring global social political themes - with rather more of an emphasis on the history rather than the science fiction of Doctor Who. A throwback to the William Hartnell roots of the program – but as seen through a 21st century perspective. Just as early Doctor Who stories examined grunting cavemen, Marco Polo, Aztecs and the St Bartholomew's Eve Massacre through a lense of the 1960s, so modern Doctor Who will inevitably see historical events through the filter of today’s culture - a time of increasing awareness of equality, diversity & inclusion; a world caught up in the nationalist fervour of Donald Trump and Brexit.

Some have criticised the series 11 for being too ‘politically correct’, but given the morality as outlined throughout the last 55 years of the programme, it’s always been pretty clear what the Doctor’s stance is. The Doctor’s most dreaded enemies aren’t the Nazi inspired Daleks for no reason, you know. Plus as with everything, it’s right that the pendulum should swing back and forth and give us some different perspectives now and again.

Demons of the Punjab follows the same template as Rosa, this time exploring the partition of India in 1947. Unlike episode 3, which featured a time travelling human villain from the future, this time we have some monsters too (the titular ‘demons’, or Thijarians as we come to identify them). But once again the thrust of the narrative concerns itself mostly with threats created out of real-life events - the division of the country into 2 parts and the creation of a new state of Pakistan. The story focuses on the impact of these global events as seen through the eyes of a soon to be married couple and their families - one Hindu, one Muslim living on the cusp of, and therefore directly affected by the creation of the new border.

There are reminders of Fathers Day (2005) at the start of the episode where Yasmin, intrigued by her grandmother’s often hinted at, but never told, story of being ‘the first woman to get married in Pakistan’ asks the Doctor if they can travel back in time to see what happened first hand. As with Fathers Day, the Doctor is cautious, warning Yaz that its dangerous to meddle in your own family history. But, once the time team arrive in 1947 India, and Yaz discovers that the man her Nani is marrying is not in fact her grandfather, it doesn’t take long for curiosity to take over and for the time travellers to to get ‘involved’. Even the Doctor can’t resist breaking the Time Lord first rule of time – to not interfere. Especially when she is personally and physically affected by the presence of alien technology in the vicinity.

The central idea of the story - that of an interfaith marriage between a Hindu man (Prem) and his Muslim bride (Yaz’s grandmother, Umbreen) - is a bold step in these religiously sensitive times - something I’ve not seen explored in any other recent drama. It’s made clear that the upcoming marriage has created tension amongst family members, with Umbreen’s brother Manish taking particular acceptation to the idea. The nuptials serve as an interesting contrast to the imminent division of the country. On the eve of India being ripped into 2 - for the sake of religious segregation and resulting in millions of citizens displaced or killed - a man and woman from different faiths are about to be unified. Again, the programme is exploring the theme of how we are stronger together than apart.

I think its no accident that the episode was broadcast on the 11th November - Remembrance Day, and the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. There are many reminders of past conflicts - shots of the Doctor and her friends running through poppy fields, plus a flashback to Pram fighting in World World 2 and witnessing the death of his older brother. The episode focuses both on the aftermath of war (for the 2 protagonist families and the country of India as a whole), as well as mounting tension on the eve of the partition.

Once again this series, the episode looks stunning. The episode was in filmed in the Province of Granada, Spain which through a combination of well sourced locations, fine anamorphic HD camera cinematography and clever post production grading easily convincs us that this episode might have been filmed in India. The sun-drenched scenery makes for a nice contrast to the opening and closing scenes set in an urban concrete contemporary Sheffield.

This is predominantly a character episode. All of the characters feel quite rounded, but it is Prem that we spend most time with, and so get to know the best. It’s a fine, subtle performance from Shane Zaza who displays a range of emotions - he’s the enthused and happy groom to be, he holds a quiet anger at the division that is about to befall his country (‘We’ve lived together for decades – Hindu, Muslim and Seek, and now we’re being told our difference are more important than what unites us’) and he’s haunted by the memories of the horrors of war, specifically the demons (human, and alien, we imagine) he encountered when fighting.

All the regulars come across well in this episode, although this is predominantly Yaz’s tale. And this is welcome because up to now the focus has been on Graham and Ryan. Arachnids in the UK touched on Yaz’s family but we didn’t really see enough of them, or get a clear sense of the relationships. A notable moment in this episode is a quiet scene between Yaz and Graham as they discuss her dismay that her grandmother might have lied to her about plans to marry a different man to her grandfather. Graham demonstrates a touching avuncular tone as he helps Yaz to understand that her Nani didn’t tell her the whole truth simply because she’s a human being too, and not just her grandmother. There are some things that just aren’t meant to be shared with your granddaughter. As ever Bradley Walsh excels in this scene.

Jodie Whittikar’s Doctor again comes across as strong, moral and determined. She boldly warns off the alien visitors, before demonstrating humility when she realises she has got their intent so wrong. She bravely faces off the human menace too - in the form of Manish, even when he is pointing a gun directly at her. It’s also nice to see the Doctor as a scientist too. With her sonic screwdriver overloaded she’s forced to ‘go analogue’ and set up a chemistry set to analyse alien technology. It’s a nice nod back to the more ‘home spun’ days of Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor as scientific advisor to UNIT. Also, in a rare acknowledgement of the Doctor’s new gender, we get to see her at an Indian hen party - she never got to do that as a man!

During the majority of the episode, we are led to believe that the alien Thijarians are the villains of the piece. The Doctor has never met them but knows them by reputation as assassins. But like the Ice Warriors of old, she has forgotten that alien morality can change over time. It’s a nice twist to make the Thijarians a race of emphatic creatures who’s only aim is to comfort the dying and soothe passage from life to death - even if it is a similar theme to that explored rather recently in Twice Upon A Time. The Thijarians are realised very effectively with some great design and soothing hypnotic voices (sounding like a cross between the Ood and Sutekh) - for my money the best of the all new aliens this year, so far. As with some other episodes of series of episode 11, the real villains of the story turn out to be humans, and in particular human prejudice.

In summary, this episode of Doctor Who is one of the highlights of the series so far. It features interesting aliens, 3 dimensional characters, and a solid and suspenseful plot - against the backdrop of very real and fascinating turbulent piece of history.

And so, as the wheel of history turns, the Doctor and her friends we forced to accept that Prem is going to become one of the first victims of the partition of India. Yaz returns to present day Sheffield, seeing her grandmother in a new light. It was a nice touch for the writer and producers to avoid having Yaz tell her Nani all that she had seen and discovered - it keeps the memory of those events somehow more precious for both women.

I really loved this episode - my second favourite so far after the highlight of the opening episode - The Woman Who Fell to Earth. But just as we thought it was all over, we were given a final parting gift in the form of a beautiful new traditional Indian inspired rendition of the Doctor Who theme music, created by Segun Akinola. It rounded off one of the best episodes of Series 11 perfectly.

At the exact half way point of Chris Chibnall’s first Doctor Who series, as the title of the episode suggests, I’m faced with a conundrum. And looking at the combination of vitriol and praise popping up on my Twitter feed directly after the episode aired on Sunday night, I think the collective mass that is Doctor Who fandom is faced with the same conundrum too. Was it a good enough episode, and overall is the series shaping up to be as good as the previous eras overseen by Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat? It’s certainly the most crazy and packed episode of the 11th series to date. But did it actually deliver in terms of a strong narrative, compelling characters, and consistent tone? In some ways the episode felt like a dumping ground of ideas, like the scrap heap as featured in the opening scene, where lots of useful, interesting and perhaps yummy things (ask a P’ting exactly how yummy) were thrown into the episode in the hope that it would work together as a cohesive whole.

So, we had one central plot (that of an adorably cute metal eating little monster threatening to eat up the whole Tsuranga space ship, and the Doctor’s efforts to catch and defeat it), and whilst this was a good enough threat in itself, with several other sub-plots going on, the momentum suffered. Particularly because the sub-plots didn’t compliment the main plot either in terms of either narrative or tone.

The episode begins with our TARDIS team recovering in a hospital following injuries suffered after being blown up by a sonic mine, while searching through scrap with metal detectors on a junk planet. It was a little unclear what the Doctor and her friends were exactly searching for (maybe something for the TARDIS, I like to think a fluid link...) and also it was unclear what their injuries were – something about stabilising vital organs, is all we are told. When Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor wakes up, she’s quite hyper and manic, rushing around gleaming white Ark In Space-style curved corridors in a desperate state trying to find an exit and be reunited with the TARDIS. I’m reminded of the Doctor’s post regeneration mania here.

Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor is reunited with her ex-Adult Life Skills co-star Brett Goldstein playing Astos - the 2 of them have a lovely chemistry together. He’s calm and restrained in his assertiveness. She’s manic, determined, and a little cheeky. There’s a nice character moment where Astos points out that the Doctor’s obsession with reversing the ship’s direction (in an effort to get back to the TARDIS) is selfish and that she’s actually stopping him from keeping his other patients safe. One of the interesting nuances about the 13th Doctor is that she is willing to say sorry and admit when she’s made a mistake, and it’s at this point in the exchange that the 2 of them gain a mutual respect for one another. ‘I don’t like being told what to do,’ says the Doctor at one point. ‘Why am I trusting you?’ asks Astos. ‘You’ve got excellent instincts,’ replies the Doctor. Up to now, the series has largely focused on defining who the new Doctor is, through her new personality traits and through her relationship with her new companions - and not so much through how she relates to the guest stars. Hopefully as the series progresses, we will get to see more interactions like this. Sadly, this lovely new relationship is cut short prematurely when Astos gets trapped into an escape pod and is killed in space.

The monster of the week is a really interesting and charming little chap called P’ting, beautifully realised through CGI and credited to Tim Price. P’ting brought to mind Doctor Who Weekly’s Beep the Meep character from 1980, in that his outer appearance is cute and cuddly, but he’s actually ‘fatally violent’, eats through metal and has skin that is toxic to organic lifeforms. He also reminded me of my 3 year old pet Jack Russell dog, Bella, as he cheekily chomped his way through the ship’s infrastructure. Whilst some fans have criticised poor old P’ting for being lightweight and too comical (therefore reducing his threat), I didn’t feel this at all. Just because something looks cute, it doesn’t mean its not dangerous (just ask my Jack Russell to show you her teeth), and its nice to see Doctor Who experimenting this series by showing us a range of different types of monster or alien. I also really liked the conclusion to the episode, with P’ting devouring the Tsuranga ship’s ‘about-to-explode’ self-destruct bomb and consuming its energy - which was a clever plot device to neutralise both threats. The look of contentment on the little fella’s face as he flew off into space, belly full and glowing, was adorable.

One of the sub-plots featured pregnant man, Yoss (Jack Shalloo), giving birth. I’ve yet to decide whether this was a really clever idea which, whilst making us laugh, provided an interesting parallel and character-perspective development for Ryan (because in witnessing Yoss’s struggling with the responsibility of becoming a dad, it enabled him to have empathy for his own father). Or whether it was actually just a bit too silly, and rather on-the-nose in terms of showing us that it’s tough for dads too. Mostly though, I found it a distraction from the main plot featuring the P’ting. Perhaps it would have worked better if the episode could have afforded to make Yoss (and also the other humanoid patients) more alien in appearance - I'm thinking of the trees in End of the World here, and the cats in New Earth. That would have kept them identifiable-with but more obviously extraordinary too. It would have upped the interest value, and also given us a consistent alien world - the kind of world that Russell T Davies gave us in the year 5 Billion / New Earth trilogy.

The other sub-plot brother featuring dying Eve Cicero (played, with a nice subtle performance by Suzanne Packer), her brother Durkas Cicero (Ben Bailey-Smith) and android consort Ronan (David Shields) was far more serious in tone. Whilst touching, it didn’t really connect with anything else going on in the episode, other than Eve and Durkas bringing the ship in to land in the end. It also came across as rather under developed. I felt there was more to this triangular relationship than we saw on screen, with some long-held bitterness and distrust from Durkas to Ronan.

In summary, I would say that there were some really nice ideas in this episode, but they didn’t really gel as a whole and that each separate element actually served to distract from the focus of the other narratives. Its actually far better on 2nd viewing, because then its possible just to enjoy story for what it is, rather than feel as though one is constantly loosing the momentum for each plot.

From a visual point of view, the spaceship design is sparse and very clean - exactly what you’d expect from a human 67th century hospital in space - though not especially alien. Segun Akinola provides another unsettling and atmospheric electronic score which does help to build the tense atmosphere, especially in those early scenes where the hyper distressed Doctor is recovering from the after effects of the sonic bomb.

The episode ends with the characters joining together for prayer, which was one of my favourite moments. Doctor Who post 2005 has avoided religion for the most part - it’s even banned in The End of the World. It’s a lovely way to bring the disparate events and characters of the episode together – it’s just a little bit of a shame that those separate parts didn’t really come together in a cohesive way throughout the previous 50 minutes. There seemed to be something significant about the final lines of the prayer (‘for now and evermore’) being read aloud only by the Doctor alone against a backdrop of space, but at this point in the series I’m not sure whether that’s something that will play out in future episodes.

In summary then, a good episode that is digested more easily on its 2nd serving. On first viewing, I felt rather bloated with the competing narratives, the swift changes in tone and the lack of momentum. If you felt like that too, and many have expressed disappointment on Twitter, give it a 2nd go. You might find it less of a conundrum and more fulfilling than you first thought.

Doctor Who has done scary spiders very successfully in it’s past, notably in the classic Jon Pertwee swansong Plant of the Spiders in 1974. A giant black spider clasped to the back of a red & white stripe bloused Sarah-Jane Smith has gone down in history as a piece of Doctor Who iconography, thanks in part to the 1975 Doctor Who Monster Book and the cover of the Target novelisation. Even small spiders can guarantee a fear response from the arachnophobes amongst us, so when they are Doctor Whoified, and ‘larged up’ rather, they make a perfect subject for a mid-series ‘back to basics’ episode of the programme.

One of the intended aims I imagine, for Arachnids in the UK was to provide a scary monster of the week (as actually, that’s been rather lacking since episode 1), and to pull out as many genre conventions (or creepy spider clichés) as possible, in order to give the audience a scary thrill the weekend before Halloween. We have cobwebs aplenty in this tale, spiders crawling out from under a bed, spiders falling from the ceiling, spiders being carefully persuaded into a metal bucket & lid trap, and best of all, a gigantic spider pushing its way (hairy legs first) out of a bath plughole. All the scary spider stuff works a treat and is brilliantly realised in CGI, and whilst prosaic gives us exactly what we expected. The accompanying plot reminds me of another Barry Letts/Terrance Dicks classic – The Green Death with its alien-free warning that capitalism without conscience, chemical waste, scientific experiments and creepy crawlies don’t make for a healthy combination.

The central villain himself, Robertson, played by Chris Noth, is, in some ways, rather a departure from those featured in the first 3 stories this series. Although rather 1 dimensional, the writing casts him as arrogant, entitled, pro-gun and a bully, but Chris Noth’s hammy performance makes him seem a figure of fun as opposed to a genuine threat. Robertson’s character is clearly based on Donald Trump, but that’s not always taken seriously, and I personally feel that Robertson (and similarly Trump) are such a threat to the world that they shouldn’t be played as a subject for laughs. It’s a mistake we see time and time again on television news where commentators simply laugh at Trump’s outlandish character rather than identifying him as a very dangerous man. Certainly, however, the scene at the climax where Robertson shoots the big mother spider is written well with some clearly laid out morality again from the Doctor and her new friends (it is Graham, once again who sums it up with his dry ‘God help us all’). This series is giving us a very clear statement on what’s right and wrong according to the Doctor, and it’s a refreshing change to have the Doctor restored to a figure of hope again, after the moral ambiguity of Capaldi’s 12th Doctor.

Like Robertson, the other guest characters this week don’t come across as 3 dimensional or especially interesting. Scientist Dr Jade McIntyre doesn’t really provide us with anything other than a device to give us a scientific explanation of the plot (which could have been done just as easily by having the Doctor discover the facts for herself). We don’t get to know Yasmin’s family as well as we perhaps should in this story, which is rather a shame, but the one who gets the most air time is Yasmin’s mother, Najia. We certainly have the beginnings of an interesting relationship between mother and daughter here. As with many mother-daughter relationships it feels both loving and strained, with Najia showing far too much curiosity in her daughter’s love life. She asks first the Doctor whether Yas and her are a couple, and then asks the same to Ryan. Some commentators have suggested this is evidence that Yas might be bisexual and that her mum is very cool with the idea. I didn’t get a sense that this was the case at all. Rather, I saw a gay daughter who isn’t out with her family and who’s intuitive mother is desperately looking for clarity whilst clinging to the heteronormative belief that her daughter might be straight after all. ‘That’s a pity’ she comments after Ryan says no they are not a couple. There’s no such disappointment expressed when Yas says that her and the Doctor aren’t a couple. Meanwhile, it’s a lovely touch to still have the Doctor seen as a figure of suspicion from the point of view of her female companion’s mother, potentially leading her daughter astray – shades of Rose, Martha and Donna here.

Whilst being half a B-movie style comedy-horror, the other half of this episode is a character piece, beginning with the Doctor finally returning her friends to Sheffield. The opening TARDIS arrival scene consists of a throwback to the ‘lonely Doctor’ moment we’ve seen many times in the post 2005 era of Doctor Who. But this time, we get a lovely comic pay off with the Doctor enthusiastically accepting the invite of tea at Yas’s.

There are some touching scenes of Graham returning to the house he shared with Grace, and confronting the full force of the grief he had left behind, too. Plus, for Ryan, a letter from his Dad apologising for not attending Grace’s funeral. This is the ‘companion coming home’ story we experienced during the RTD years, and rather left behind when we reached the Amy and Clara eras. Its an important stopping off moment where we get to see the companions return home changed by their early adventures with the Doctor, and helps the programme feel grounded.

By the end of the episode, all 3 new companions have decided to stay with the Doctor. Yas needs a little longer away from a family she loves, but who irritate her because she can’t be completely honest with them, Ryan has come to realise that his Dad and blood ties aren’t as real a family for him as his new team in the TARDIS, and Graham has faced bereavement full on and understands that it will take time to heal.

Our Doctor is delighted to welcome back the friends she thought she was going to lose, and the episode ends with a lovely moment of the 3 of them pulling down a TARDIS lever and catapulting the time ship into flight.

Whilst not the most successful so far of Series 11, Arachnids in the UK is half scary romp with great CGI, and half a really good character episode. Its sometimes rather light on substance, but succeeds in being both an entertaining 50 minutes and in helping us to get to know the new ‘Team TARDIS’ or ‘fam’ a little better. I am looking forward to seeing the TARDIS emerge from its new rather marvellous psychedelic time tunnel effect (that premiered this week at the very beginning of the epiosde) and materialise (with new funky moving background again please, very impressive) into another location next week and a new adventure.

Back in 2005, when the first series of its new era debuted on BBC1, Doctor Who very quickly became water cooler moment television. The programme’s new 21st century audience stretched across a wide demographic – parents and grand-parents were thrilled at the return of their lost hero in a police box. In school playgrounds across the land, children (captivated by what was to them a new and terrifying metal monster) played at being Daleks - arms stretched out and screaming exterminate. Mothers saying goodbye to teenage sons and daughters at train stations, as they travelled to university, felt a comradery and empathy with Jackie Tyler who was missing her daughter Rose as she flew off into time and space in the TARDIS ; popping home just intermittently to deal with farting Slitheen in Downing Street and invading Sycorax on Christmas Day. The nation crouched behind the sofa, captivated by the brilliance of an empty child in war torn blitzed London. Their hearts tugged at the pure and raw emotion of 19-year-old Rose going back in time to 1986 to try and save her Dad. ‘I can see why she likes the Doctor,’ said my own Mum on one of my visits home, ‘she sees him as father figure’. ‘I actually felt sorry for that poor Dalek, I can’t believe it’s the same programme I used to watch as a kid’' said one woman to writer Russell T Davies in WHSmiths (according to Doctor Who Magazine). Suddenly Doctor Who was new and different, and a much wider group of people suddenly got what this old science fiction programme was all about. They were talking about Doctor Who.

Over the 10 series to date, something of that water cooler moment has gone. Inevitable with a long running series, and with writers trying out different, and perhaps not quite as relatable ideas. But a stated goal for Chris Chibnall in Series 11 was to try and make Doctor Who talked about again. 3 stories in, and Doctor Who this year is big news. Everyone is talking about it. Leading up to, and directly after Episode 1, of course, we had a new Doctor in the form of Jodie Whittaker. High audience figures, word of mouth, the delayed reveal of both the new TARDIS interior and opening theme and titles kept the momentum going into episode 2. Episode 3 had the challenge then of possible audience fatigue.

Well as it turns out, Episode 3, Rosa, has been the most talked about episode of series 11 to date. Doctor Who did something very different this time - a trip back to 1950s racially segregated America, which coincidentally provided a startling comparison to events in the national news this week when a passenger with Ryanair racially abused a fellow passenger. It was stark reminder that the battle against racism is not yet over, some 60 years later, making this particular episode especially more poignant.

The episode again looks stunning and filmic – with South Africa doubling as Alabama in 1955. The story is slower paced than in previous weeks giving us plenty of time for the set-up, and to observe the reactions of the Doctor’s new friends to the shocking racist norms of 1950s America. This is new territory for Doctor Who, and like the previous 2 episodes, the episode doesn’t shy away from presenting us with very real people and situations - this time from history, with some shocking and racist language and imagery. The episode confronts the use of accepted racist slang of the time (in a cafe/bar, in the streets) and ‘whites only’ segregation hotel signs.

There are some striking moments throughout the episode that help to bond the Doctor and her friends together. From the Doctor’s point of view, there is a very clear moral stance. This is something that Chris Chibnall has made a big effort to get right with the writing for the 13th Doctor. In the 3 episodes to date we have been left in no doubt as to what this Doctor stands for – she’s anti-gun, anti-violence, anti-bigotry. She’s empathic, caring and understanding, she is enthused and curious about life and every lifeform. Its lovely to see this so clearly spelt out, especially following directly on from the 12th Doctor, who was often morally ambiguous and, despite those final words just before regenerating (‘Never be cruel’), actually was – several times.

The 3 companions continue to impress. There is a touching and revealing scene between Ryan and Yas, crouched next to some bins in an alley, discussing how racism is still very much alive in the 21st century, and we get some insight into Yas’s life in the police force. The loss of Grace is referenced once again, this time with some humour, but it is believable because bereavement isn’t something real people get over quickly, and its right that Graham and Ryan should still be seen to be struggling with this, and also sharing happy memories. Tosin Cole as Ryan particularly impresses this episode, as the companion most impacted by the racist environment he finds himself in. We go from his outrage at the unfairness of the situation, to his delight and enthusiasm meeting Rosa Parks and then Martin Luther King and eventually his triumph as he sends Krasko back in time. Bradley Walsh again impresses as Graham, particularly in the final bus scene as he realises that in order to preserve history he needs to become part of the awful event. ‘I want no part of this,’ he insists as a determined Doctor tells him he has to remain on the bus to ensure history takes place as planned.

Jodie Whittaker gives a more subdued, less humorous performance this week, allowing the seriousness of the story to take centre stage. We get to see her stand up to the villain of the episode, Krasko. She is every bit as powerful and determined as her male predecessors in the role. There’s quite a shocking scene when Krasko grabs her by the neck. I suppose its revealing something of my unconscious bias here, but I actually found it more shocking simply because the Doctor is now a woman, in this case being attacked by a man. Its good that the new series isn’t shying away from this. In every respect so far, she is reacting to the situations she finds herself in with exactly the same responses that every previous, and male Doctor, would have done.

Krasko himself is a straightforward, if not particularly Doctor Who-y type of villain. His motivation in this story is to change history because he’s a racist. There’s nothing camp or off worldly about him. He just comes across as very human and very flawed, and because of that, I found him especially unnerving and frightening. This comes from the writing and also Joshua Bowman’s performance – which is notably naturalistic for Doctor Who. From a plot point of view, he did seem to be got rid of rather easily, and perhaps in a way that the Doctor would not approve of, so I can’t help but wonder if we might see him again. Fans have commented that there are similarities between his character and the Meddling Monk of 1960s Doctor Who, and so maybe there is more of a story with him to tell. However, given the stark tone of the episode perhaps its best not to make him a recurring villain as it risks devaluing the seriousness of this week’s story.

Segun Akinola’s musical score this week offered a different feel from previous episodes, evoking a 1950s America contemporary mood. It feels less radiophonic this episode, which is great because this whole series comes with a promise of variety.

The final scenes of the episode are where everything comes together – with our time travellers completely a part of the historical events unfolding as Rosa refuses to give up her seat to a white passenger on the bus. The look of shock and outrage on the Doctor, Graham, Ryan and Yasmin’s faces - and also a feeling of just being incredibly uncomfortable at having to be partly responsible for something so unpleasant – make this scene especially memorable. But it is Vinette Robinson’s portrayal of Rosa with her defiant determination to say no to institutionalised and legitimised bullying, that make this scene so memorable, particularly in the moment where, despite being escorted off the bus by police officers, she still manages to provide a wry smile to Ryan as he places his hand up to the bus window to show his solidarity.

The final scenes, and particularly end credits are a first for Doctor Who, too - in that in place of the regular end title music, we get a pop song – Rise Up by Andra Day. Some have criticised this inclusion, stating that it was a step too far and that really any Doctor Who story should always end with the well-known Ron Grainer theme tune. But I think the use of such a powerful soul/pop anthem was perfect to underline what a very different episode of Doctor Who this was. Doctor Who has of course done history many times in its 55 years, but never before has it shown us something so dark from such recent times, and never before have we been faced with the realisation that the monsters are not necessarily those that come from outer space, but the bigotry and prejudice that comes from our very own humankind.
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Because it was so powerful, the episode immediately became a talking point on Twitter, and in the national press. This is exactly what the producers no doubt intended, but I think that they, the director Mark Tonderai and co-writer Malorie Blackman could not have expected such an overwhelmingly positive response. Apparently, children are asking questions of teachers and parents across the land. And while it’s still fantastic that kids can have fun with Doctor Who in the playground, its just as important that they learn. This was exactly Doctor Who’s remit back in 1963. Doctor Who is back doing what it always did, and what it was created to do – to entertain and inform. And to be talked about.

After last week’s exceptional opening episode, I had high hopes for episode 2 – The Ghost Monument. After a settling-in episode where the Doctor and her new friends get to know each other, now was the chance to have some real science fiction Doctor Who-y adventure, and on another planet too - with 2 suns!

The first thing to mention is the opening title sequence, kept back from The Woman Who Fell to Earth and being seen for the first time here. Its stunning. The designer has invoked the kind of mysterious images that we haven’t seen since the 1960s/1970s Bernard Lodge titles. It’s a very simple sequence with still lettering for the actors' names, and no TARDIS or face of the Doctor. The pulsating, almost psychedelic, time tunnel images are hypnotic and stylish. Together with the new thumping retro theme arrangement, for the first time since 1980, Doctor Who’s opening beats are pretty scary. Something finally worth hiding behind the sofa for.

The episode starts strongly with some stunning cinematography using Ryan’s semi-conscious opening eye to remind us of the cliff-hanger of the previous episode. Ryan and Graham have been ‘scooped’ up into a spaceship, and separated from the Doctor and Yas, so with everyone’s lives at stake, the opening scenes are tense and exciting. We are introduced to 2 new characters – Angstrom and Epzo, space travelling pilots competing in an intergalactic race. Both feel very dark and intense for post 2005 Doctor Who, reminding me of the type of hard-nosed characters we saw back in the mid-1980s Eric Saward vision of Doctor Who. The next few scenes, which follow our heroes as they are re-united after a crash landing on planet Desolation, are both dramatic and fast passed as well as visually stunning. And then things quieten down - we are introduced to the main plot – that of a quest, and we spend a lot more time getting to know the new companions, and the principle 2 guest stars for this week.

Really for the most of the episode, it’s a fairly talky, character-based state of affairs. There aren’t any monsters until nearer the end of the episode and even then, they are a little bit uninteresting. It seems a little too early in the series run to be short on the monsters. Its good however that the episode focuses on character. In the Moffat era we were getting used to characters simply trotting out clever lines rather than authentic dialogue. Its nice to take a break from that and I think that that’s one of Chris Chibnall’s intentions – to get the series back to focusing on believable characters.

Susan Lynch as Angstrom and Shaun Dooley as Epzo both put in strong performances. Both characters have tough backgrounds which have made them determined and hard. Their journey throughout the episode is to soften somewhat with one of the overriding themes of the episode being to work as a team rather than simply as individuals – with the Doctor reminding everyone by the resolution of the story just how much this matters. This serves the story itself, and well as highlighting that the new TARDIS team is exactly that.

A notable moment featuring Shaun Dooley’s Epzo is his recall of a childhood experience with his mum, where, promising to catch him as he jumped out of a tree, she simply let him fall, to teach him that in life you cannot trust anyone. This provided Epzo with a core belief that to get things in life you have to stand on your own 2 feet. Jodie Whittaker in this scene is powerful in her quiet response – she allows Epzo’s story to be the main beat of this scene, but then comes back with the retort that ‘your mum was wrong’ – powerful in its straightforwardness and simplicity.

With this being Jodie’s first post regeneration story proper, it’s nice to see the Doctor’s morals being central to the episode. We have the theme of working as a team, central to the new companion dynamic of course, and in this particular episode central to the defeat of the monster – the Remnants. We also get to see one of the strongest moments of the Doctor’s opposition to guns, contrasted with Ryan, as an angry young man, venting his anger on the planet’s androids. In this episode, with Ryan's failure 'making things worse', the Doctor very much proves her point.

Ryan, in this episode is shown as a young man angry and struggling. He is struggling with the loss of his gran as seen in episode 1, struggling with his dyspraxia, struggling with his relationship with Graham, and probably just struggling with being put in an extraordinary situation far from home. There is a lovely interchange between Graham and Ryan early on in the episode which underlines the grief both characters are feeling, and how they are facing it in very different ways. ‘You talk about it too much,’ says Ryan to his step grandad, to which Graham replies ‘you don’t talk about it enough’. How many families, faced with the overwhelming weight of the death of a family member, have gone through similar experiences and disconnects in the aftermath of a bereavement.

The highlight for this episode for me, and most of the audience is the discovery of the TARDIS. That’s really what we were all waiting for, wisely held back from episode 1 by new writer Chris Chibnall. Unfortunately, the plot leading up to this point, did seem to drag a little, and I know several viewers who actually got rather bored and had to pause the episode half way through and come back to it. I think what was lacking was much of a threat, and a tangible alien baddie. The episode was also too talky for an episode 2 and there simply weren’t enough monsters. I’m writing this having just seen episode 3. And whilst episode 3 is a great episode, there aren’t any monsters in that one, and so the series feels rather short of monsters so early on in its run.

The discovery of, and then entry into the TARDIS scene, is of course stunning. Jodie Whittaker’s performance is a delight. She is clearly very happy to be back with his oldest best friend, her ghost monument (and as a Series 5 episode suggested) her wife. It’s a wonderful moment to see her walking into the TARDIS and seeing it, for the first time, together with her new friends. ‘You’ve redecorated' with the long overdue (but just brilliant here) payoff of ‘I really like it’ worked perfectly. A clever throwback and reworking of the famous Troughton quote from The Three Doctors. Jodie completely owned the new interior. ‘Can I touch it?’ asks Ryan. ‘No’, replies the Doctor sharply. Yummy custard cream in hand, the Doctor and her new friends end the episode taking their first journey in the TARDIS. Back to Sheffield of course. But as we know from the trailer for episode 3, the long way around.

A stated aim of Chris Chibnall for Series 11 is to deliver variety and show off what the series can do. Whilst it didn’t necessarily deliver as a fun, monster and family friendly episode 2, The Ghost Monument has a lot to recommend it – with a beautiful alien landscape in 2:1 cinematography, some fascinating character insight, and once again excellent performances from the entire cast. With the theme of team work resonating in our heads as the TARDIS dematerialises in that stunning moving camera last shot, we finally have a complete 4-person time travelling team about to embark on further adventures in space and time. Not since the early Peter Davison era has the TARDIS been so crowded. However, for this reviewer the new team has echoes of the original Hartnell team of Ian, Barbara and Susan in that whilst there is potential for conflicts, there is a warmth and likeability to the relationships. I'm looking forward to how the new time family get on over the next 8 episodes.