"Lucky Day"

A week on from the sequel to "Midnight", we have a more spiritual successor, and not just to one story. An everyday man has an encounter with the Doctor as a child and becomes obsessed with finding him, accumulating a group of like minded individuals in his quest to find the Doctor's companion. Despite this being the same premise as "Love & Monsters", the result is very different. Instead of the fundamentally decent Elton Pope, we have the decidedly more malign Conrad Clark and this twists "Love & Monsters" into a decidedly unpleasant shape. Instead of the guilt that Elton feels in his search for Rose, Conrad's manipulation of Ruby is utterly cruel. Instead of finding love and friendship in his search, Conrad finds enablers who match him in malevolence, though definitely not intelligence. "The Well" didn't have the social commentary on groupthink that "Midnight" had, but this is delivered in spades here. Anyone with a condenser microphone and a smartphone can make a podcast and Conrad has weaponised his own resentment. One of the infuriating things about post-lockdown is the lack of nuance in public debate. Admitting that you were wrong is almost unheard of. Changing your mind means that your followers turn against you. Whether or not you know you're wrong becomes irrelevant. Pete McTighe wrote some of the best stories of the Chibnall era and his return is very welcome.  

As with "Dot and Bubble" all of this hinges on a very unpleasant character being brought to life by a skilled performance. Jonah Hauer-King is totally believable as someone who could charm a person into believing that they were a normal lovestruck young man, whilst being a toxic narcissist. The smirk that Conrad gives after he imagines losing subscribers after admitting the truth is perfect. However, the other prominent character is one that we are very familiar with and we have the very welcome return of Millie Gibson as Ruby. Despite the fact that you can buy whiskeys at the supermarket that are older than her, her maturity and charisma is astonishing. There is very little for Belinda to do here, but we are in good hands. Kate returns (with a seemingly very good friend) as we are given a UNIT story where the greatest threat is social media. As with Lindy in "Dot and Bubble", we have some context. Conrad clearly had a troubled childhood (we are shown a child being hit, for the first time) and the fact that he supports his mother can be seen as commenting either on how nuanced familial relationships are, or how toxic relationships can become normalised. Or possibly both.

Peter Hoar returns with a slick production that makes it look like Ruby is the lead in an X-Files type programme, with nods to the brilliant "73 Yards" from the previous season. Like that story and "Love & Monsters", this is low on Time Lords. However Ncuti Gatwa burns in his few scenes. There are no tears here, just kindness and cold fury.

Doctor Who again shows that its days of commenting on current human behaviour are not over. It is wrenching to see some of the very true-to-life behaviour on display. Yet such is the skill of the production, it remains highly watchable.

NEXT: "The Story and the Engine" 

"The Robot Revolution"

Doctor Who returns for its 20th year on air in the 21st Century with another bright and breezy opener. Whilst it's not as light as "Space Babies", the brightness of the design matches the broad strokes of the story. Russell T Davies again throws us directly into the life of an ordinary human being who is about to have their life turned upside down. The strange thing is that, were in not for RTD's name on the credits, one could be forgiven for thinking that this was straight out of the Moffat era. Timey-wimeyness is at the heart of the story with a near paradox being the crux of the twist near the end.

However, if one looks closer, this clearly builds on what Moffat added to the programme, whilst being still the work of RTD. There is a reason as to why we are given very little of Belinda as a regular human being, namely that she is not really built up as the companion at all. In the story, after setting up the initial premise, Belinda actually re-enters events in the middle. Usually, the Doctor enters a situation, identifies the enemy and has to win the trust of everyone else, including the new companion. Here, this has been done, with Belinda entering the story where the Doctor is helping the rebels, with the help of his new companion Sasha 55 (winningly played by Evelyn Miller).  Amusingly, this means that population already trust the Doctor, but not Belinda, by the time she enters. However, Sasha is tragically lost, meaning that Belinda has to step up. 

There is, however, more going on than setting up a season in a breezy fashion. RTD makes sure to address his worries about society – in this case,  the directions that gender politics might be headed. There is a lot that the story has to say about toxic masculinity and the fact that  Alan Budd might seem like a nice, sweet guy, emphasises how rampant misogyny can hide anywhere and his fate is both amusing and apt, reduced to his component gametes. Jonny Green makes Alan both chilling and sympathetic in an excellent performance.

Peter Hoar helms a very bold production. The look has hints of Tintin and Dan Dare and the defeat of the villain made me think of The Prisoner, for some reason. However, it has to be said, the effect of the disintegrator ray is chilling, dead cat or no dead cat. As Belinda is de-facto, rather than de jure as companion, she is more of a POV character than even Rose was in her début. Varada Sethu works wonders in the role making Belinda instantly likeable. The Doctor is very nearly peripheral, but Gatwa never lets the camera forget who the star is.

This new season starts with something that seems to distil the very essence of the programme into a very intoxicating dram.

NEXT: "Lux"

"A Good Man Goes to War"

This series of Doctor Who has decided to do something different so, for the first time, we have a mid-series cliffhanger. As we have come to expect from Steven Moffat, the story starts with a dizzying sequence of scenes where the Doctor destroys a cyber-fleet just to make a point. We also have vignettes that range in location from Victorian London to the planet Zarathustra in what looks like a 41st century version of War and Peace. The Doctor is calling in some of his debts and all hell will break loose...

The quest of the Family Pond is a staggeringly exciting one, and contains the usual funny and moving dialogue we have come to expect. However, although heart of "A Good Man Goes to War" is the hunt for Amy and her daughter, the mind of the story is somewhat different. In all the far-flung and exotic locations that we see throughout the episode, we do not see the Doctor himself for the first twenty minutes of the episode. But we hear about him and we see what he leaves behind him so when he finally appears, nearly half-way through the episode, we know why an army has been raised against him, not to attack, but to defend. If "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang" was about the Doctor as story, then "A Good Man Goes to War" is about the Doctor as a legend and how legends change. Angels become demons and demons, angels and the word Doctor has come to mean 'great warrior' in some parts of the universe. Of course, the Doctor has been many things, from determined idealist to detached manipulator. He is the Lonely God and a madman with a box. However, Moffat has a very clear idea of what the Doctor should not be and the Doctor has been heading that way for some time. He has trailed devastation in his wake and it is not only the evil that see that as a threat. The entire realisation of the army is excellent- in their spare time, the clerics train themselves to recognise the psychic paper, a random sign at the start has a picture of the sonic screwdriver with the warning ‘1. It’s not sonic 2. It’s not a screwdriver’.

The fact that all of this is told in a hugely entertaining adventure proves how masterful Moffat is. Lest we forget, the story also contains contains two of the most endearingly bonkers, yet irresistibly ingenious characters the programme has ever had- a Sontaran nurse (gene spliced to cope with...er...every nursing need) and a Victorian Sapphic Samurai Silurian swordswoman (played with smouldering saurian sexiness by Neve McIntosh) fighting crime with her trusty maidservant. We also have the Headless Monks, serving the Papal Mainframe herself, chanting attack prayers armed with lightsabres from Hell.

Matt Smith is astonishing yet again. The Doctor's rage almost seems to embarrass him, yet its effect is potent. Arthur Darvill is masterful as an ordinary man who has reluctantly become a legend himself and Karen Gillan's portrayal of a defiant mother is utterly convincing. Frances Barber relishes her role as the chief villain in the story and there is great support from the entire cast, including Danny Sapani as Colonel ‘Runaway’ Manton and Christina Chong as Lorna Bucket, who joined the Church/Army just to meet the Doctor again.

Peter Hoar has a hell of a lot to visualise and a large cast to manage, but he copes with the challenge magnificently constructing scene after memorable scene. The whole production is fantastic, from Demon's Run, with its Death Star like bays to Zarathustra’s utterly convincing battle field, realised for less than two minutes. Everyone behind the scenes deserves a big hand.

It ends with, seemingly, everything lost. But Melody has returned grown up- for that is who River Song is. I am slightly disappointed that I guessed this (although I did think that Jackson Lake and Adelaide Brooke were involved!) but not very much so. Questions remain, of course- is she part Time Lord, and was the little girl in "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon" her? If so, did Madame Kovarian succeed in creating the ultimate weapon? It's going to be a long summer...

NEXT: "Let's Kill Hitler"