Once
again, I have quibbles, although they’re different from last week. That’s not super important, though. What’s important is that I absolutely,
full-on platonic-love the Thirteenth Doctor so hard. I know it’s only her second episode, but I’m
already pretty sure I’m gonna have to add to my list of favorite Doctors (it’s
like on The Mindy Project, when Mindy
says, “Best friend isn’t a person, Danny.
It’s a tier.” It’s like that, but
with Doctors.)
Last week’s
attempt to recover the TARDIS has landed the Doctor and her new friends in a
dicey situation. Floating in space, they’re
luckily picked up by the final two competitors in a planet-hopping race on the
cusp of their last challenge. That
challenge? Cross the wastes and ruins of
a lifeless planet called Desolation and be the first to reach the “Ghost
Monument.” Our heroes make for the
Monument as well, with the Doctor trying to discover along the way just what
ravaged the planet.
My chief
complaint here is that the plot feels a bit underwritten. The interplanetary-race story works just
fine, the rival racers are both interesting characters, and the adventure aspects
are mostly exciting and entertaining. We
also get hints at what’s likely to be an arc for the season. It’s in the episode’s central mystery,
however, where it falls down a little bit; it feels like every other scene
includes a line or two of the Doctor wondering what happened to the former
inhabitants of Desolation without any forward momentum on figuring it out until
a big infodump near the end. It just
feels like the story is spinning its wheels a little.
The
pacing issues from the last episode are largely corrected, though, which makes
me happy, and I enjoy seeing the new companions cope with their situation. New Who
hasn’t gone in much for companions time- and/or space-traveling by accident,
although it was fairly common in the classic series (going all the way back to
One taking off with Ian and Barbara inside the TARDIS, with them not knowing
what’s going on.) As such, it’s a change
of pace to see the companions on an alien planet before they’ve actually signed
up to travel with the Doctor. I’ll admit
to being pleasantly surprised with how Graham rolls up his sleeves, and I’m
liking the way Ryan and Yas poke around together.
From her
first scene in this episode, Jodie Whittaker is completely settled in as the
new Doctor. Goodness gracious – she pilots
a crashing spaceship, she delights in encountering something she doesn’t
understand, she’s take-charge and self-assured, she declares that she’s “spent
[her] life” outthinking bullets (so true,) and even though she’s still viewing
the companions from a rather temporary lens (since, again, there have been no
invitations to travel together at this point,) she takes her duty to get them
back home again very seriously.
Honestly, she’s just everything I could’ve wanted. Funny, brilliant, heroic, curious, inspiring,
and compassionate; the final scene of this episode is gorgeous. Be warned:
a lot of my episode reviews for this season may end in me just gushing
over Thirteen.
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