New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 5 (The Story And The Engine)

Buckle up, friends. We've got a lot to tackle with this one.

The Story And The Engine is the best debut Who script from a writer we've had since... god, Sarah Dollard with Face The Raven? There have been some highlights since in the Chibnall years like Vinay Patel or Ed Hime or Nina Metevier, but those are mired in that trouble of an era. This? This radiates with a confidence rarely seen on this show. Inua Ellems has crafted pure gold here, and I want to luxuriate in that space and sing the episode's praises. It's handily my favorite of New Doctor Who Season 2 so far, finally dethroning Lux. It pulses with the heartbeat of other cultures, other people, other stories than the ones we've seen on Doctor Who thus far. It does this with immaculate fucking beauty, delivering some of the most potent vibes ever given to me from the phone box show. There's a power to stories, all stories, and this story is glowing with it. Let us take care, and examine it for what it is and why I love it.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 4 (Lucky Day)

Well, I'll say this: It was better than I was expecting.

Conrad Clark does not get a screencap on my blog.

Lucky Day sees the return of Pete McTighe to televised Doctor Who, which is a bit of cursed knowledge that gave me pause. McTighe, of course, debuted during the Chibnall era with Kerblam, an episode which took me on a bit of a critical roller coaster ride in the fall of 2017. I remember watching it with the friend I was visiting, and enjoying it quite a bit. It had an energy and a drive to it that the Chibnall episodes up to that point had been lacking. It really felt like some solid Doctor Who. It really didn't sink in, what it was doing (and I confess to a naivety on my part back then, but I was on vacation and riding on high vibes then, give me a bit of a pass) until I read some more critical reviews and gave it a think myself. Ah. Oh dear. It completely upended itself into centrist neoliberal horseshit in the last ten minutes, famously stating that the problems with its world weren't the rampant unchecked excesses of hypercapitalism and space Amazon, but the revolutionary leftist trying to Do A Bad To Change The Status Quo. Bad. Very bad, but we will circle back to this unfortunate sentiment when we get to the climax of Lucky Day, and see just what's changed. This is an improvement from McTighe, but in some ways it's much of the same. For better or worse, McTighe has his distinct style and vision, and it bristles against my tastes somewhat.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 3 (The Well)

Oh yeah, second episode in a row with a big
MIRROR ALERT. And mercury, too. Based.

 I guess you could say... Well well well, another banger from New Doctor Who Season 2. Look, I'm not a dad but I'm middle-aged, what do you want from me? A Doctor Who first impression, probably, but lucky for you my fingers are currently crafting one for your eyeballs to scan. Ain't that a bit of serendipity? The Well is an odd one, in that it is once again one of those cowritten episodes, and the usual pitfalls and cautions apply. You can't just blindly speculate which parts of this script are newcomer Sharma Angel-Walfall and which are RTD. This was a problem back in the Chibnall years as well, where it was tempting to look at every cowritten episode and delineate who wrote which part based on if you liked it or not. I have a guess as to what happened here, with a prior episode to cite as evidence, but if the actual basic concept here was all Angel-Walfall? Keep her the fuck on, she gets it.

I say that, of course, while liking but not loving The Well. My podcast pals, whom I could not join for reasons of being in a basement hundreds of miles away, really loved this one. It is a strong episode and I will have much praise for it, but it is very much a sci-fi horror Gun story. There's more than a bit of Aliens in it, and that's all done very well, but it's not my absolute favorite mold of Doctor Who, y'know? At least it's better than Earthshock, but that's damning with faint praise so we will try a different tact. Let's talk about Aliss Fenly. I fucking love her. It should not have taken Doctor Who another literal decade to get some good deaf representation, but they did it and she's miles ahead of that girl from Toby Whithouse's Flood two-parter. I just wanted this poor girl to get out of it safe, and she did. Arguably, but we'll get to that. I love how her deafness is used in the story to add to the world and the plot, from the holographic screens that translate speech to her fears about people turning their back on her: both because she can't lipread and know what's being said, and because of that thing on her back.

Yes, we'll get to what that thing is supposed to be, but let me continue to jam and praise the everything around it that isn't that. As far as horror/monster concepts go, this thing is fucking genius. I love that we get these brief jumpscare glimpses of a something, and I forbid myself from going back and checking the screencaps to get a closer look. The concept of this thing latched onto the back that kills you if it is perceived is so damn effective, and I love the shot where the metaphor of the clock face is brought up and you then see the aerial shot of the huge circular room the action plays out in. The massacre in the second act is so goddamn macabre while still remaining safe enough for an all-ages sci-fi show that's doing a spooky one this week, and less is more in this case. Just like the mysterious monster on Aliss's back, not seeing shit often adds to the tension and scare. The fear of the unknown, and all... Ah, but then we do get a little of the known with this being. Yes, let's rip the bandaid off and talk about that, hmm?

So. This is Midnight 2. This is a sequel story to an old David Tennant tale from 2008. Now, there's a lot to be said about that from all sides. You have people who were floored by this, and excited at how this accentuates a really spooky David Tennant classic. You have people who are lamenting the fact that we're pissing away one of our precious Doctor Who slots on a sequel to a story that came out when current high school graduates were born, and worrying what this means for the rumours that Doctor Who Is Dead Forever #RIPDoctorWho. I'll be honest with you. If this were four years ago, I'd be in the latter camp. Go search through this blog for anything to do with Season 4 of Enterprise and you will find a version of me frothing at the mouth about this kind of shit. That version of me would rail and scream and shout about the lack of creativity at play, and wondering why this just couldn't be its own fucking thing instead of tying in to Midnight to light up a fan's brain. This is all true. That version of me is also six years in the past. I'm several critical regenerations ahead of that, so what do I think now?

I'm on the fence about it. I can see the arguments for how this choice enhances the episode, and how it also detracts. Eh. It does nothing for me. It sparks no particular joy to make the episode better, tying it to a Tennant classic, but it also doesn't fuck it all up for me like 2019 me would be screaming about. Settle down, you old dork. What we have here is a very strong original idea that gets a tie to Midnight, and this is my best guess as to how the thing was constructed. I could be wrong, but perception is everything. I think Sharma Angel-Walfall came up with this amazing horror monster concept, a thing on the back that kills if someone gets between it and other people like a clock face. I also think RTD went something like "Oh, that's rather like that episode Midnight I did" and then made the connection with his cowriting credit. It's not the first time he's done something like this: Cast your mind back to The Giggle, where RTD came up with that creepy puppet thing at the dawn of television, thought up a puppet master for it, and then went "Hey, doesn't Doctor Who have an evil gamesmaster weirdo in its canon already?" before dredging up the Toymaker. I think that's what happened. I could be wrong. Point is, I'm much more mellowed out and this doesn't help nor hinder things for me.

I will dock RTD a little for the ending, though. It is a strong ending, and really could have had a fun ambiguous horror vibe to it. Are they paranoid, or did the monster really escape? That ambiguity could fit really well with the idea of this being a sequel to Midnight, that episode being all about how paranoia and mistrust turns ordinary people into mob mentality monsters. Then he has to have that shot of the airlock occupancy. Prominently. If it had been a background detail for someone to notice and speculate on, great! The fact that it's right there is a bit much for me. It's the same as RTD actually trying to give an explanation to 73 Yards. Take a page from David Lynch, buddy, and don't go saying the answers. Let us come up with them! That being said, there is still plenty of speculation about that ending, so I guess things aren't all doom and gloom. The Well, then. A very strong Doctor Who episode that isn't hurt by its flirtations with the past, but not my favorite mode of the show. Lux remains my favorite of the season thus far, but this is a close second. Not bad at all. 

Okay, what's next-- OH FOR FUCK'S SAKES PETE MCTIGHE AGAIN? GOD WHY COULDN'T WE GET VINAY PATEL BACK I HATE THIS--

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 2 (Lux)

(With thanks to Lena Mactíre for some magical consultations)

I got you, moonlight, you're my starlight...

I'll echo what I said a year and a half ago, in a brief 5-star review of Wild Blue Yonder: RTD, holy fuck. With Lux, we have something we've not had in a long time: an episode I really love which other people actually agree with me on. It was a harsh period there where I thought the pervasive toxic stink of fandom was poisoning this show to death in the public opinion. I almost wrote a hit piece about how the true Empire Of Death were the fans who were convinced this shit was going away forever. I did not do that, but I have a very different piece simmering in my mind. A piece about the new RTD era, and about how its more magical elements let not just gods and goblins into the world of Doctor Who, but open holes in the fourth wall for our own perceptions and assumptions to seep in and affect the program. Boy howdy am I glad I waited until this season concluded to write that, because RTD just fucking goes for it here. Let me gush about Lux for an amount of words, and give my praises as the magic returns to Doctor Who (not that it left, but it did for a lot of nerds!). 

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 1 (The Robot Revolution)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOORB

God damn it, I went and did it again. Two solid damn months of procrastinating on writing anything. I had this really neat show that fascinated me I was going to write about, and after than an anime, and then after that another anime for the summer. Now look at me, in goddamn April with five months of time left before the double fall whammy of Screams marathon and Non-Specific November Writing Month take up all my spoons. Frezno Inferno, you dingus. Well, at least I played some good computer games. Oh yeah, and also time has forced me to get back into the writing mode because there's a new season of Doctor Who, so let's talk about the opener to that for a while like we do. I have taken to joking around whenever this season comes up, calling it The Last Ever Season Of Doctor Who because of all the doomscrollers and naysayers who didn't like Empire Of Death and are thus convinced that that big dumb Welshman RTD has run this time travel show into the ground, that Gatwa is leaving at the end of this, that we're not renewed into 2030 so the show is clearly cancelled forever, and that we'll all have to go back to reading Wilderness 2 era books and hearing Big Finish plays while yelling loudly that Doctor fucking Who has been worse than it's ever fucking been. DON'T YOU JUST FUCKING LOVE MODERN FANDOMS? I fled to Quantum Leap to get away from shit like this, Christ.

Frezno's Comics Challenge: One More Final? (Tokyo These Days)

Well, here we are. The end, I think. It will be very embarrassing and there will be egg on my face if Sean in fact had more comics planned after this, but those are the breaks. That would almost be a shame, though. Not because I would be grumpy about doing more comics critique, to be clear, but because this feels like a true and fitting ending place for the Comics Challenge. A comic about making comics, with this elegiac finality to its proceedings. Taiyo Matsumoto's Tokyo These Days isn't our first dance with manga, or even the longest: I actually think it's the shortest manga I had to cover, considering that I covered mammoths like Pluto or Kamen Rider. Let's go for one more burst of brevity, then. Let's talk about the vibe of this comic, and what it's bringing to the table.

Frezno's Comics Challenge: Final (Britain A Prophecy)

And now, near the end, we come to the Comics Challenge post most likely to get me in trouble, because it's the most likely one to be read by the actual people behind the comic. Yeah, a handful of the other ones got the post on Twitter announcing them liked, but this is different. This is Britain A Prophecy by Elizabeth Sandifer and Penn Wiggins, among others, and already we have to stop and pause. As Sean put it when giving me this entry, "WE OWE THEM". I don't know what precise debt Sean has to repay, but I know how it's true for me. As I have stated before, this space would not exist without Elizabeth Sandifer. She inspired me not just with her TARDIS Eruditorum, but with her old defunct Nintendo game blog, and when I decided in a pique of madness to ask to resume it, she gave me the equivalent of a "Yeah, sure". Eleven and a half years later, here we are. I feel like I am what you'd call thriving creatively, but now here's a daunting one. Analyze the work of a mentor figure. Scary stuff. If you are here, El, thanks for everything. I hope this is up to par, and if it's not... Well, apologies.