“Ncuti Gatwa is an imbecile!”
Now, i’m loving that there will be a contingent of people out there who actually know why i just shouted that. Its not because he’s an imbecile, its for a far deeper, far more fanboy reason. For those that don’t get it, ignore me, i’m weird.
Apparently in an interview a good while ago, Steven Moffat actually gave away the title of his episode – well, that passed me by. I knew the title when it appeared on screen – and knowing very little of the plot save the Next Time trailer last week, i could only assume there was going to be a bomb involved.
The Doctor and Ruby arrive on a blasted heath of a world, and on hearing screams, The Doc rushes out to do what he does best – put right what once went wrong, and generally do good egg things. However, in his exuberance, he finds himself with one foot on a mine and with some kind of biology scanner trying to work out if he’s real or not.
The stakes here are surely just the Doctor’s life, right? NO. Moffat manages to escalate the potential cataclysm by using some nonsensical timey-wimey energy thing that means if Ncuti does decide to leap a hundred feet in the air and scatter himself over a wide area, said explosion would probably tear the entire planet in half. Ooft, indeed.
You would think spending an entire episode standing on one foot to be a challenge for any actor, but Ncuti’s performance does not let up. I was particularly moved by his tears – of desperation, of sorrow, of helplessness, of guilt – and theres an emotional gut punch midway that delivers. The man is simply the best thing about the show.
Guest characters include young Caoilinn Springall as “Splice” whose father we discover was the victim of the bomb in the opening gambit, but Varada Sethu in particular is causing a bit of a stir… because she is the companion-to-be in a whole seasons time. So, basically, what they’re doing is repeating the way they introduced Clara way back in “Asylum of the Daleks“. Am i impressed by their retreading of a previous idea? Well, the problem is we KNEW about Varada’s involvement. Could we not have kept it all a big secret so the reappearance of her later was even more surprising? Anyway, another guest appearance was Susan Twist as the “villain” of the piece – an ambulance run by a computer algorithm that is, ultimately, providing a casualties because it doesn’t know there isn’t actually a war (which is in itself a really nice, science fiction concept). This is Susan Twist’s fifth credit so there is absolutely no way this is coincidental. RTD has a plan and we’re seeing it play out in front of us. Is the Twist that Susan is returning?
Said rumour is further amplified by some of the dialogue. With his life in danger, The Doctor appeals to the hologram computer resonant of Splice’s recently deceased father (who may be able to infiltrate and rewrite the enemy algorithm) using a parent-parent plea. We’ve not heard the Doctor talk about his family very often – the mention of his grandaughter in the last episode was a welcome rarity – so is something else going on? Of course, RTD has been exploring the themes of family this whole season, particularly his affinity to Ruby because they ‘are both orphans’.
The resolution isn’t ideal – a little too much technobabble and exposition – but it doesn’t take away from the emotional journey across the episode.
It feels like a low budget episode because, really, the action all takes place in one big dirty bunker. But this is not a complaint. Some of the my favourite episodes of TV have been cramped, “cheap” bottle episodes. See “Macrocosm” from Star Trek Voyager, and “Shuttlepod One” (one of my favourite episodes of all TV ever) from Star Trek: Enterprise. A limit on locations and even cast requires more innovation when it comes to storytelling and brings out the best in the performers.
In other words, happily the best episode yet. This is a darker Whopisode, and if we have a couple more of them in the season before its finale, i might forgive the silliness in the rest of them. Forgive is a big word. “Hate them less”, is more apt.
Oh, and in the words of Jake Peralta, Ncuti Gatwa is “da bomb”.
the FANGG of HORROR ROCK 