We got not one but two new episodes of Doctor Who to-day, both written by Russell T Davies. They're good, not perfect, but who is? Who is. Right up front, though, I want to say I'm really glad the show is taking risks again. Would we have seen a snot monster in Chibnall's era? Would we have seen one of the companions get said snot in her hair? My feeling is no.
The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) is perplexed that he ran away from the roaring monster with huge teeth. I wouldn't beat yourself up too much, Doctor. Maybe he is a noble snot monster, last of his kind, but he also has huge teeth and rending claws and a bit of a temper. Don't you remember what you said in "Listen" about the utility of fear and it being a superpower?
I did really like the concept of the "Bogeyman". I wasn't so into the talking babies but that's personal taste, I wouldn't really call it a flaw.
Davies gives us a Doctor and TARDIS introduction, reinventing that scene yet again. This time the Doctor tells his new companion that the nice thing about his life is that he pays no rent, has no job, and has no boss. That's certainly relevant to a lot of people in the western world as it seems like crowds of them in increasingly greater numbers are being pushed into the streets for, as the kids say, "reasons".
But that has always been an unstated part of the Doctor's appeal. He has a stable home he can always go back to called the TARDIS. It's not quite accurate to say he doesn't have a job, though. At the least he has a vocation. You could call him a knight-errant. He makes sacrifices, he expends a lot of time and energy for selfless goals. He's not just loafing about. Sure, there's plenty of sightseeing.
The second new episode to-day, "The Devil's Chord", has some really tragic flaws. The premise of the Doctor and Companion going to meet the Beatles is a fine idea though it's, again, Davies failing to keep up with wokeness as much as he'd like. Expressing hatred for the Beatles has become kind of a woke dog whistle (see the latest season of True Detective). I suspect he thought he was actually going to be able to use at least one Beatles song in the episode. Disney's partly footing the bill now and there was just recently another Beatles documentary put up on Disney+. But Disney has exhibited disastrously budget conservative behaviour in the past.
Not only are there no Beatles songs, there are no '60s rock songs whatsoever, and boy, did it need it. I would have recommended, if he couldn't get any of these songs, that Davies have made the episode about Bach or someone else equally public domain. Everyone loves the Van Gogh episode (actually, I'm not particularly fond of it).
How much funnier when the dance number at the end have been if they'd actually used Chubby Checkers' "The Twist"? It's nice to have Murray Gold back doing the music but he collapses under the weight of what's required of him in this episode.
I do like the idea of a musical battle--it was something I really liked in the last Doctor Strange movie--though it was another scene that would've worked a lot better if they could've licensed music composed after 1900, like "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". I also liked the idea of music being crucial to civilisation.
I have nitpicks. Ruby's idea to change clothes for the '60s was good but might've been better if she and the Doctor weren't already wearing clothes that clearly would've passed in the '60s.
Ruby pretending they were there to relieve the tea cart lady was really weak. I fully expected the woman to say, "Yeah, right." Given what Ruby and the Doctor were wearing, and that it was a record studio, it would've been more reasonable to assume they were two young musicians perpetrating a gag.
Does it seem to anyone else that Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson talk just slightly too loudly, like they're a little deaf? Maybe I'm just getting old.
The new episodes of Doctor Who are on Disney+ or, in the UK, the BBC iPlayer.
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