A fairly bumpy episode for me and, to be honest, something of a
letdown after “Spyfall.” Also, this was written by Ed Hime who did “It Takes You Away,” one of my favorites last season. The episode just doesn’t come
together for me, despite some great moments.
Team TARDIS is on holiday! Our heroes are off to a two-week stay
at the all-inclusive Tranquility Spa, and because this is Doctor Who, things immediately start going wrong. Something is
interfering with Tranquility’s systems, which is particularly bad considering
the monsters just outside looking for any chink in the armor. It’s up to the
Doctor and her companions to figure out what’s going on, why, and how to stop
it.
Like I said, there is some good stuff here. The opening is
strong, breezy and fun. I enjoy kooky moments like the cheery alien hostess who
introduces herself as “Hyphen with a 3” and a bizarre virus that can affect
both machine and organic systems. The Doctor is in pretty good form throughout
(I especially loved, “You can make an ionic membrane from scratch?”, “If I had
some crayons and half a can of spam, I could make you from scratch!”), Yaz gets some strong moments, and I like
points of the mystery. Plus, I spent a good chunk of the episode trying to
remember where I recognized her from, but one of the one-shot characters is
played by Laura Fraser a.k.a. Door from Neverwhere.
On
the whole, though? “Meh” with a side of “huh?” I often enjoy base-under-seige
type stories, but this one doesn’t quite gel. The one-shot characters are too
thinly drawn, but with the illusion of having more depth than they do. While
many of them have a particular “thing” going on, the result is each character
repeatedly going back to their individual wells time and again. The threat is
too blatantly pushing for “big scare” moments and doesn’t fully pull it off.
Also, certain plot developments are just head-scratching. Things happen without
compelling reasons (or for outright dumb reasons,) and character moments feel
inconsistent.
Overall,
not a great showing. Despite the presence of some good seeds here, it doesn’t
entirely get off the ground. The story feels like a draft that could’ve turned into something a lot
tighter and more interesting, given a few more rounds of edits.
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