Doctor Who Series 11 First Impressions: Episode 5 (The Tsuranga Conundrum)

Baby has a glowy tummy =)

Oooh, now this is spooky. I'm writing this from inside some sort of time warp. Like, more so than usual. The Internet is currently out here, and it looks to be that way until at least Tuesday evening. If you're seeing this on Tuesday evening, the 6th of November, then you'll know I got back on time. Any later and you know it took me longer. Beyond that, you're way in the future and looking back at this. (Future intrusion note: 24 hours early, hooray!) I'm talking about timely post-airing first impressions, though. So, what did Chibnall put in front of us here? Hmm. I don't know. It would be mean to call The Tsuranga Conundrum the worst episode of the Whittaker era so far. It would also be inaccurate. It isn't bad. It didn't offend me. On the flip side though, it didn't wow me in a way that other episodes this series did. For better or worse, there's no real element in this that speaks out to me and makes me feel a passion, be that praise or damnation. This was perfectly servicable Doctor Who that gave me mild entertainment on a Sunday night. In that regard, it's almost exactly what I expected from the Chibnall era before it aired. The problem is that we had those other four episodes that gave me a lot to talk about, be it good or bad. Still, we'll make something of this. Or try to.

Okay, so it's basically a base under siege story. Boneless Alien, a Twitter pal called it. You got a little fucker running around in a spaceship doing bad shit and threatening to destroy the works of it, and the Doctor and friends have to save the day. Let's try and go on what I liked with this, I guess. I like the panic of the Doctor once they arrive on the hospital ship, and her desperate need to get the TARDIS clashing with the hospital guy's sensibility, leading to the Doctor realizing humility and apologizing. That's a new choice that I can't really see many other Doctors going for. It gives me something to work with. Similarly, the Doctor's speech about antimatter and positrons is absolutely wonderful. Nonsense scientifically, if forum goers are to be believed, but the passion and energy behind Whittaker's delivery of it really shone through. There's a real sense of trying to put the Doctor's back against the wall here, with no TARDIS and no sonic screwdriver to save the day. Okay, she gets her sonic back eventually and that does save the day, but the sense of improvisation and plotting on the fly is lovely. This is a Doctor who, to quote one of her past selves, could save the universe with a kettle and some string. Aesthetically, these are some very pretty corridors to be running down, all white and slick. It's a very different space aesthetic from, say, The Ghost Monument, which had "used future" spaceships. I dig it. Of course, there's the monster. The Pting is a neat concept, I guess. It's a space gremlin. It gets in your ship and fucks it up. Okay, it's a neat concept. More to the point, the Doctor actually gets a fairly decisive victory here. She doesn't kill the Pting, but it was more a force of nature and didn't have to die. That and only two people bought it in this one. Compared to the grim business or half-hearted resolutions of the previous stories this season, this is, so to speak, more like it. You'd think, though, they would have shown the Doctor getting back in the TARDIS given the urgency with which she was worried about leaving it in a space junkyard, but this is a very minor nitpick and I can accept "it was just fine and they got back in it and left okay" as an offscreen resolution.

Well, then there's the pregnant guy, about whom I'm not sure how to feel. With no Internet I can't give you any takes from, say, trans masculine men who may or may not have found this a flat note. I knew, going in, that we'd have a pregnant man as a supporting character and he would kind of be the comic relief, which frankly terrified me and others. I didn't get THAT much of a horrible vibe of the comedy being based on "ha ha ha it's WOMEN that get pregnant, not men, look how funny!" or anything, but again... I'm not the authority on this. Similarly, this ties into Ryan's plotline where the reluctant dad-to-be reminds him of his dad, and he encourages the guy to keep his kid. I found it sweet, but others could take that as anti-adoption. Again, not the authority, wish I could look up takes online to offer an alternate perspective, but I can't. Beyond those notes, what are we left with? An average episode of Doctor Who. Corridor running in space while a monster attacks. It's just fine, really. There are some weird notes, as mentioned above, but nothing that played too sour for me personally. I wasn't enthused, but I wasn't appalled. Really, that's the slight disappointment. Sometimes Doctor Who is just okay. We wish it can bat a home run every time, but sometimes it just makes it to first base. Better than striking out, as we've seen with other terrible moments. It's probably not going to be anyone's favorite episode of Doctor Who, but it doesn't have to be. As an hour of entertainment, it worked. That's all it batted for, and it made that. Good.

Next up to bat: The partition of India. This happened in 1947? Oh dear. Colonialism.