Another 31 Screams Day 29: Doctor Who Series 11 First Impressions: Episode 4 (Arachnids In The UK)

I used this shot because 1) no giant spiders to trigger anyone's
arachnophobia and 2) reflection in the glass.

Call it a combination of serendipity with the timing of this episode's subject matter and airing, and of sheer laziness on my part, but it's my word space so we're going to combine the 31 Screams marathon with Doctor Who First Impressions. It'll be a fun journey, and we'll get to yell about spooky giant spiders. To that end, we have episode 4 of the Whittaker era. In hindsight, by now in the Capaldi era I had a sense of what we were going for. Listen was a masterpiece, a high point of Season 8, and a welcome sigh of relief after a rocky start. Arachnids In The UK is not that, but I'm not here to make comparisons beyond that remark. This one's a clear case of the journey being more satisfying than the destination. We'll get to the destination, of course, but that journey is a real fun one for the spooky season! Aside from Tim Shaw and his random slasher-esque killing of people, this is the first outright dance with horror undertones that the Whittaker era's undergone. Last week was an uncomfortable tension that hit close to home because it was real, but this is just spooky spider shit. It's a fun kind of scary, and it's hard not to have fun on the ride. So, here's the ride. Here's Arachnids In The UK.


Why not kick it off with the Yaz focus? With three companions this series, it's obvious that a bit of shuffling was going to happen with the focus. Ryan and Graham are the main dramatic players in Ghost Monument (on account of losing Grace), then Ryan and Yaz in Rosa (on account of race), and now it's Yaz on account of glimpses into her family life and roping her mom into the adventure. You do get a better sense of Yaz as a character by way of her family life, and it's a sense that she's a bit of a loner with a somewhat overbearing family. People have nitpicked that she doesn't react to anything by virtue of her police officer background, and I suppose that's valid but it didn't pull me out of the episode. She's got some great interactions with her family and her mom, and I appreciate her all the more thanks to this one. The show has to work a little harder with Yaz's beats, I feel, since she doesn't have the same family relationship that lets Ryan and Graham work naturally together, but in this case I'd say they nailed it.


Okay then. Spiders! What's refreshing about this is how it seems tailor-made to be a continuity reference story, but then isn't. Giant spiders? Oh, that's just Planet Of The Spiders with Jon Pertwee. They grew giant thanks to toxic waste in a coal mine? Oh, that's just The Green Death also with Jon Pertwee. I gather Chibnall is fond of the Pertwee years, then... but we don't get any wink wink nudge nudge about it. We did get a Venusian aikido reference two weeks ago, but this is a remarkable bit of restraint. The man has to have known about those two episodes when plotting this out, and yet he doesn't come out and say it. If you binged most of 45 year-old Doctor Who like I have, you know it and the show doesn't need to say it. If you haven't, then it just seems like an original and new idea. It's a basic spooky thing, but it works. There are spiders. Spiders are inherently scary, giant ones even more so. The bit where a spider breaks through the bathtub is particularly effective in this regard. They're not even evil spiders, they're just unfortunate mutations brought about by bad negligence... which leads us to the end of the ride, and the problem.


The problem is Jack Robertson. He's a jerkass rich man who refuses to take any responsibility for the problem. You're not meant to like him, and he's basically a Donald Trump expy. He sucks, but he's an effective antagonist in that regard; he's there to get your blood boiling and be an obstinant obstacle to the Doctor and friends, and he excels at that. My problem comes from the abruptness of the ending. He shoots a defenseless giant spider who was dying anyway, the Doctor gets mad at him for it, and... he just walks away and that's the end of the conflict. For Doctor Who, this is lacking. This is a show that's shown us a Doctor who, over multiple incarnations, will tear down people like this. It's become such an essential and satisfying part of the show for me that its absence actively lowers the quality of the show for me. He just gets away with being irresponsible and violent and going against the Doctor's wishes without so much as a "don't you think he looks tired?". I don't like it. Maybe he'll come back and get his comeuppance, but as of right now I am dissatisfied with the way things ended. One may argue it's more realistic that sometimes the bad person gets away with it, and if that's your view of Doctor Who I won't fault it... but it's not mine. The Doctor Who I love has the bad person get their karma in the end. I can't get behind it. It's a crucial misstep in an otherwise fun hour of giant spiders and spooky stuff. Still, we'll see how things play out. For now, while I can't claim Arachnids In The UK is the finest hour of the Whittaker years so far? I can say that it's still a fun ride. We'll just have to have faith and see where it takes us next.