TV Review: Doctor Who Presents a Double Season Premiere of Varying Quality

Doctor Who is back for Series 14—or Series 1, depending on who you ask—and it’s probably the most controversial it’s ever been. Part of what makes the series so popular is that there have been so many different actors, writers, directors, stories, and themes that there’s a little something for just about everyone. But that also means that there’s almost no two Doctor Who fans in the world who can agree about what makes the show great, leading to a lot of arguments in fan forums. Add to that the fact that the show is now starting to come under fire for its queer content, and you get some really aggressive debates that are going on right now.

Make no mistake, though, Doctor Who is a show for and by queer people and it has been for a long time. The person who directed the first episode in 1963 was queer. The first queer person to take over as showrunner of the show did so in 1979. And since the return of the show in 2005, it’s been overtly queer-friendly, working in LGBTQ+ characters whenever possible, both in minor and major roles. What seems to have set off the bigots this time is the fact that trans and gender non-conforming characters are starting to take on a bigger role in the series, not just gay and lesbian characters.

There’s also some controversy over the shift in tone and style. Many people are starting to complain about the show’s recent shift to more fantasy over science-fiction. But that’s an odd complaint, as well, considering that Doctor Who has always been a fantasy series masquerading as a science-fiction series. The scientific explanations in the series have always been flimsy at best, and are usually convoluted psudeoscience. In the third season of the reboot, they introduced the phrase “Wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey” which is used to explain away things that don’t quite make sense. So to pretend that this has ever been a hard sci-fi series and that it only just recently changed to fantasy seems like a disingenuous argument. It’s still fantasy with a flimsy scientific explanation.

But then there’s the recent return of Russell T. Davies, the showrunner and head writer who launched the reboot in 2005. After over a decade away, he’s returned, some say to “save” the series from its disappointing performance during the Chibnall/13^th Doctor era. I’ve been saying for years that Davies, despite his popularity, is actually the weakest of the three showrunners due to his penchant for childish silliness and inability to wrap up stories. There are a lot of things I respect Davies for, but, for my money, Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall were better showrunners and writers. I feel like some people are starting to realize just how silly Davies’ writing is and always has been.

Which leads us to the season premiere, with two new episodes that were launched this past Friday: “Space Babies” and “The Devil’s Chord,” both of them written by Davies. The episodes seem to be getting positive reviews from critics and negative reviews from fans, but it’s hard to tell how many of those negative reviews are genuine since there have been organized campaigns from right-wingers to review bomb the new season. So I think it’s time for a queer-positive Doctor Who super fan (me) to weigh in on the new episodes.

“Space Babies”
Rating: 27/100

For the season premiere, Davies decided to go hard with his silly side to create a truly bizarre episode that’s rooted in gross-out humor and one very heavy-handed allegory. In the episode, the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his newest companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), travel to a space station run entirely by babies who are somehow intelligent enough to be able to speak and operate a space station, but still have the maturity of toddlers. But, on the deck below them, is a mysterious creature known only as the Bogeyman that seems to scare anyone it comes into contact with, including the ever-fearless Doctor.

This episode is positively bonkers and makes no sense. There’s a heavy-handed abortion metaphor where it’s explained that the babies ended up taking over the station because it’s illegal in their society to turn off the breeding machine, but then nobody is willing to take care of the babies. It hits you hard over the head, and almost feels like the series’ apology for the controversial series 8 episode “Kill the Moon” which has often been misinterpreted as an anti-abortion metaphor.

The Bogeyman turns out to be a monster literally made out of snot, which is some classic Davies’ style gross-out humor. It’s reminiscent of a series 9 episode called “Sleep No More” where the monsters were made out of eye-boogers, which was heavily criticized by fans for being silly. Why Davies thought the idea deserved a revisit is beyond me. But beyond the composition of the monster, there’s also the fact that the episode wants us, the viewer, to care about the monster’s fate at the end of the episode, but it completely fails to earn that from the viewer. The Doctor simply tells us that this anonymous creature is important enough to care about, and we’re not given any real reason to care.

Then the whole thing seems to be one big build up to a tremendous fart jokes. Have I mentioned that I really hate fart jokes? Between the snot monster and the fart joke, I felt like I needed a shower after this episode. I’ve been reluctant to rewatch this one since it aired, except just to write this review, and even then it was a hard one to watch again.

“The Devil’s Chord”
Rating: 94/100

Pulling a surprising 180, the second episode to be released for the season premiere is significantly better than the first. In this episode, a sort of sequel to last year’s 60^th anniversary special episode “The Giggle,” the Doctor and Ruby decide to make a trip to 1963 to watch The Beatles record their first album. But when they arrive, they’re surprised to find that The Beatles and all other musicians of the time are creating horrible, uninspired music and seem to have none of the joy and passion for their music that they’re supposed to have. It turns out that all music has been stolen by Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon), the child of the Toymaker, who was able to enter into this universe because of a composer who found the secret “Devil’s Chord” that allowed Maestro to crossover between realities. It’s now up to the Doctor and Ruby to save all music from this god-like fiend.

This is one of my favorite episodes that Davies has ever written, but to be fair, it’s really carried entirely by the performance of American drag queen and two-time Ru Paul’s Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon, aka Hera Hoffer. Monsoon brings all the joy and camp of a drag show and puts it into one outstanding villain who’s both funny and absolutely terrifying at the same time. The role gives Monsoon a chance to pull off a number of different costume changes and a number of dazzling musical performances to create a true tour de force the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Michelle Gomez took on the role of Missy in series 8.

The episode ends on a musical number, which is another one of those things that is causing a lot of controversy within the Doctor Who fandom, as there have been musical numbers in the Christmas special and this episode (and, to a lesser extent, a dance number in “The Giggle”). But the musical numbers make a weird sort of sense, especially when we factor in that the Toymaker’s realm has crossed over with the Doctor Who universe. It’s established that the Toymaker’s realm follows different laws of science and physics than the prime universe, and anything it touches starts being governed by the rules of play. So there’s the flimsy pseudoscientific explanation that every Doctor Who episode needs to justify calling it science-fiction.

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With two wildly different episodes of varying quality, it’s no surprise that the fandom is in chaos right now. But next week we get the first episode of the new season not to be written by Davies. Instead, next week’s episode marks the return of controversial writer and former showrunner Steven Moffat. Moffat is my favorite writer for the show, which is certainly an unpopular opinion, but I’m excited for his return. So we’ll see what next week has to offer.

The new season of Doctor Who is streaming now on Disney+.

Photos courtesy of Disney