On the bright side, this was definitely a Doctor Who episode, not some weird season 11 whoey-ish thing. On the not-so-bright side, it’s not a good one. The pacing is weird, the story is confused, the characters are one-dimensional and largely pointless. But hey, it’s been a while since we’ve had a good base under siege story, and at least that feels nice.
Perhaps the best part about the episode is the beginning. Not how the plot begins, that’s largely just a serviceable Doctor Who get the Tardis team to the story opening, but the fact that The Doctor is still obviously dealing with last week’s reveal. It only lasts for the opening two scenes but it’s nice to know that that’s still going on. Also the monster designs are pretty cool. That’s about the only positives for this episode.
To begin with, let’s look at the large ensemble cast. And it’s large. You’ve got Jodie Whittaker who’s once again pretty great, honestly, Whittaker is easily the strongest part of Doctor Who right now and it’s a shame that she’s getting so many bad scripts. You’ve got the companions: Tosin Cole’s Ryan, Mandip Gill’s Yaz and Bradley Walsh’s Graham, who are all just kinda along for the ride, maybe not Ryan but definitely everyone else. You’ve got the “you thought that the Cats movie had a furry fetish” character who dies right away. By the way, I’m spoiling this because you shouldn’t watch this. You’ve got the no-nonsense military person. You’ve got the other military guy who dies. You’ve got the lady in the picture above who is kinda there until they decide she’s a terrorist and her mom is the no-nonsense military person because somebody had to do it. You’ve got the old couple who haven’t been married and then the old man gets carried off by the monsters and dies after asking the other one to marry him and then the old lady screams about him for a bit until she dies too. And then you’ve got the green haired dad and son, who exist.
You see the problem here right? They’re all dumb and there’s too many of them.
Now let’s talk about the story. So The Doctor and Co. show up on this alien resort that quickly becomes attacked by the pretty cool monster designs. They manage to fend them off but the old guy is taken away by the things. So they decide to take EVERYONE OUT INTO THE RADIATION FILLED ATMOSPHERE TO GET A DYING OLD MAN BACK FROM AN ARMY OF MONSTERS. THAT INCLUDES A LITTLE BOY AND AN ELDERLY WOMAN. Can someone explain to me why they thought this script was a good idea? And that’s within like the first fifteen minutes. So they all go out in this truck and they have these special oxygen tanks that replenish in oxygen environments so they can survive. And then they get attacked by monsters so the Cats rip-off and other military guy die and everybody else runs away into a service hatch that exists. Also, in that time the no-nonsense military woman kills the old guy because he asked her too. So they’re all in the tunnels and it’s revealed that the lady in the picture above is the no-nonsense military lady’s daughter so the lady in the picture teleports away with Ryan to blow up the resort. Then the old lady dies. Then they find out that they’re actually on Earth. Then the military lady dies. Then Whittaker is about to run out of oxygen but she stands near a cool monster design and it replenishes her oxygen because they breath in CO2 and release oxygen (which by the way shouldn’t work, because you can’t stand by a tree in an otherwise CO2 atmosphere and just suck oxygen out of it). Then they get back to the resort and Ryan has convinced the lady in the picture above not to blow everything up because that’s what the script says. Then it’s revealed that Earth looks like this now because global warming and that the cool monster designs are mutated humans. Then the little green-haired boy runs off because he’s mad at his green-haired dad for dismissing him. So The Doctor and the lady in the picture above save him and then The Doctor convinces a cool monster design not to kill her for a bit. And then the green-haired dad is complaining that he can’t fix the teleported to get them out of there because he’s not smart like his green-haired son and then the green-haired son shows up and fixes it. But they can’t all teleport away and so the lady in the picture above sacrifices herself so they can go. And then the no-nonsense military mom shows up to help her daughter and the resort blows up and everyone leaves and then they don’t save the daughter and the mom even though they’re in a time machine. And then Jodie Whittaker gives a speech about global warming and then we’re done.
So it was dumb.
The thing is, I kinda get what they were trying to do. The whole green-haired father and son sub-plot, though dumb, is supposed to show how the younger generation is going to have to fix things that the current one can’t. And I think global warming is bad, but the message is kinda just crammed down the audiences throat at the end because there wasn’t enough set-up before about global warming bad. So yeah. Don’t watch this episode. Watch something good with your time.
P.S. What did you think about 1917?
Personal Rating: 3/10
Enjoyment: ⭐️⭐️ ☆ ☆ ☆
Depth: ⭐️⭐️ ☆ ☆ ☆
Story: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Comedy: ⭐️⭐️ ☆ ☆ ☆
Tension: ⭐️ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Acting: ⭐️⭐️ ☆ ☆ ☆
Directing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ☆ ☆
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