Doctor Who: Series 12, Episode 5 – “Fugitive of the Judoon” (2020)

Fantastic, wild episode! Big goings-on here. I’ll avoid spoilers for now (more to get into after the season is over, definitely!), but this one is major and has me super excited/curious for what’s to come.

When a platoon of intergalactic law-enforcement mercenaries, the Judoon, cordon off Gloucester, the Doctor and company swoop into action to help minimize collateral damage. The Judoon are on the hunt for a fugitive, and they appear to have an ordinary English couple in their sights. Our heroes try to find out what the Judoon are really after and get there first, before the Judoon wipe the city off the map in their ruthless pursuit of justice.

Nice story setup. The Judoon don’t see a ton of play on Who, but they’re solid antagonists, so I like seeing them return here (along with the Doctor’s penchant for rhyming descriptions of them!) Some of the mystery surrounding their fugitive seems a little telegraphed at first, but it winds up going places I never would’ve expected. We also get some strong guest characters of the non-Alien-Rhino capacity.

Strong showing for the Doctor. I enjoy watching her get in the Judoons’ faces over jurisdiction and suffering no fools when it comes to investigating what’s really going on, classic take-charge Doctor. Serious stuff happens to her in this episode, but even as she reels with it, she keeps her head and presses on. Big implications here, and it’ll be really interesting to see how the Doctor deals with it going forward.

It’s an episode that sees the companions separated from the action for a sizable chunk of the story, but despite that, they still feel pretty well-used. They all have memorable lines, and Yaz and Ryan in particular get a few moments to shine in their dealings with the Judoon. More importantly, all three of us really step up in terms of getting the Doctor to let them into her life in a real way, not just the madcap adventuring they’ve been doing. The last scene is glorious and has a lot of very genuine feels behind it. Graham, Yaz, and Ryan often feel more like a unit of companions rather than three people with individual relationships with the Doctor, which I think has kept the group from really bonding, but here, even though the last scene is still with all of them together, it feels much more intimate and honest than a lot of Thirteen’s interactions with her companions.

As I said, I won’t spoil any particulars of the big moments here, but it’s. So. On! The episode features multiple Big Whovian Squee!!! scenes that just bowled me over. We get more momentum on the apparent season arcs, giving us further hints to what we’ve already learned as well as opening up brand new dimensions from out of nowhere. Not sure where the rest of the season’s going, but I can’t wait to find out!