Other Doctor Lives: Broadchurch: Series 2, Episode 2 (2015)

*Written in 2018*

I was a little underwhelmed by episode 2. While the stuff on the Sandbrook side of the plot is all right, the trial stuff is more all over the place. And since the trial is the storyline I was more intrigued by in the season premiere, that’s disappointing.

Hardy becomes increasingly bent on finally solving the Sandbrook case, and he enlists the help of Ellie and Claire (the woman he knows from Sandbrook) in a tricky gamble. As the trial gets underway, the first witnesses are called in to testify for the prosecution, and the defense doesn’t hold back in cross-examination.

As I said, I wasn’t terribly impressed with the start of the trial. I’m still trying to get a read on Jocelyn—obviously, a big part of that is her backstory, which is being intentionally kept secret, but her general characterization also seems like it’s still getting settled. Furthermore, I don’t know what Sharon is about. As the killer’s defense attorney, she’s of course aiming to cast doubt on the prosecution’s evidence, but the way she goes about it in this episode seems at least as much about stirring up soap-opera drama as it is about defending her client.

The Sandbrook stuff is better. It’s interesting to see how the working dynamics between Hardy and Ellie have changed since they were investigating Danny’s murder. And given Hardy’s “this time it’s personal” attitude toward the case, that puts Ellie in a position of having to be the more clear-eyed one, urging him to be reasonable and less myopic. Additionally, there are some neat interactions between Ellie and Claire.

And what’s Beth up to? Still continuing her journey from last season to figure out how to “be” now without Danny, and while she’s made halting progress on that front, the trial is throwing her for a serious loop. She’s one of the witnesses questioned in this episode, and it’s rough. Whittaker does a fine job capturing Beth’s bewilderment, disgust, and churned-up grief at the questions she’s being asked that, in her mind, are only picking at old wounds and distracting from the fact of who killed her son.

*Written in 2025*

Okay, so series 2 is bugging me even more on rewatch. There are plenty of specifics that I can’t remember from the first time around, but the overall feeling of “yeesh!” is back in full force. Unfortunately, a lot of the issues here reflect badly on Hardy.

When it comes to Sandbrook, Hardy is pretty off the rails. At this point, we’re all the way into the idea that he’s continuing this investigation on his own, without police jurisdiction or oversight. When he proposes an idea that will put Claire at risk and Ellie, you know, suggests doing this through the properly channels, he retorts, “Nobody cares, Miller! That case is tainted, nobody wants to get near it. That’s my failing. I’ve got to put it right.” And just like that, handwave, he’s no longer bound by law or duty to follow the rules

Meanwhile, the trial for Dadnny’s killer is understandably worrying for Hardy, given that the reason Sandbrook still haunts him is because the case fell apart at trial. So when there’s something that could jeopardize the killer’s confession as evidence, and Jocelyn explicitly warns Hardy and Miller that they need to figure out how they’re going to deal with it when Sharon grills them on it, you’d have thought he’d be more prepared to address this. Instead, his cross-examination leaves him twisting in the wind.

And it’s like, this is just another reason why proper protocol matters. When police let their emotions guide them and they break the rules, even if they justify their reasons to themselves, it puts the future court case at risk, and what’s the point of doggedly chasing down the guilty party if their sloppy corner-cutting or unethical choices means justice won’t be served?

Some of the choices Hardy and Miller made in series 1 are now endangering the trial in series 2. What’s more, it makes me mad that the show puts us in a position where the Black female defense attorney talking about police brutality is framed as the bad guy, and we’re meant to go, “Oh, no!” when she grills Hardy about it. And Hardy carefully saying the killer “had sustained an injury” is just gross.

Look, David Tennant is doing his best with the material. The issue is, it’s just not good material.

Doctor Who: “Lucky” Day” – Spoilery Thoughts

*Just what it says on the tin. Contains spoilers for both “The Robot Revolution” and “Lucky Day.”*

Now that I’ve shouted sufficiently about the finale, I’m circling back to take another look at some of the earlier episodes in the season. Between “Wish World” and “The Reality War,” I’ve already gotten into some spoilers on Conrad Clark, but there was plenty I didn’t say about this episode the first time around, so let’s get into it.

After this episode first aired, I wondered if incel boyfriends were going to be the Big Bad of the season, and in a way, I was sort of right. Conrad certainly plays a major role in the two-part finale, even if the Rani is running the show. But it’s still striking to me that one season shows two different companions with toxic boyfriends/exes who wind up being the main villain of the episode.

And in the case of both Alan and Conrad, the men are initially presented as “nice”/decent guys who reveal their true colors later in the episode, although the signs are definitely there from the start. Alan insists that the star certificate he gives to Belinda be labeled “Miss Belinda Chandra” because she’s not married, and there’s an early offhand remark about girls not knowing much about STEM. The groundwork is laid for what he eventually becomes.

Meanwhile, Conrad lays it on thick playing sweet and overeager, but there are a number of moments in his early interactions with Ruby that don’t quite sit right. I straight-up rolled my eyes when Ruby offers him the antidote for the Shreek pheromone and he says, “On one condition: you let me buy your dinner.” I’m sorry, Conrad, you will only take this antidote that will prevent an alien predator from ripping you apart if Ruby goes on a date with you? Why are you setting conditions, dude? And his preoccupation with the Doctor pings in a “something’s off here” way. He wonders if the Doctor was Ruby’s boyfriend and repeatedly compares himself to the Doctor, ultimately setting up a scenario where it appears he’s put others in danger because he wants to manufacture an alien crisis to prove his bravery to Ruby. “Everything [the Doctor] was, I can be,” he insists. “I’m not afraid.” And Ruby, who’s just begun to realize that she’s still dealing with PTSD from her adventures on the TARDIS, tells him, “You should be.”

But as it turns out, it’s no surprise that Conrad doesn’t nail it in the good-boyfriend department, because it’s all an act. Dating Ruby is merely a means to an end for him, and the alien crisis he seemingly manufactures is entirely made up. It’s a con, reeling UNIT in and then “exposing” them as frauds via livestream. Because Conrad is in fact a right-wing conspiracy theorist who’s convinced that everything the public has seen and heard about aliens is really just a cover for UNIT’s strongarm tactics and extrajudicial overreach.

Yeah, there’s a lot going on there. I find it very interesting that Conrad’s “exposure” of UNIT is under blatantly false pretenses. He never actually sets out to catch UNIT in the act of fighting fake aliens that they’ve created for propaganda purposes. Instead, he makes the fake aliens and baits UNIT into showing up, and their reactions made it clear that they think the Shreeks are real when they first engage. So even if Conrad does really believe that UNIT is filled with shadowy puppet masters and disinformation theatrics, he’s less about proving that with evidence and more about simply getting everyone else to believe it too, by any means necessary.

And of course, a big part of the messiness of this episode is that UNIT is a shadowy government military organization with little oversight and a history of less-than-sterling behavior at times. UNIT has employed actual children and put them in dangerous situations where they have to kill or be killed. UNIT has acquired incredibly powerful technology that they don’t always understand how to use. UNIT has been prepared to blow London to hell to keep it from falling into enemy hands. UNIT is in no way some blameless darling here. But because Conrad is the antagonist, and because he’s the stand-in for right-wing conspiracy-mongers (he’s even a podcast bro, for crying out loud!), then UNIT becomes the innocent party. UNIT becomes the analogue for climate science, vaccine science, and other fields that get targeted by people like Conrad. He’s the bad guy, so any legitimate criticisms of UNIT get swept under the rug, never mind that in this very episode, Kate goes way over the line by releasing the captive Shreek in the building, knowing it will hunt Conrad because he’s still marked with its pheromones. Although she’s told afterward that she went too far, the prevailing theme of the episode is unambiguously “UNIT good, Conrad bad."

Y tu Luna también: 3Below: Season 1, Episode 1 – “Terra Incognita, Part 1” (2018)

*Premise spoilers.*

Before I get into the review, there’s something I forgot to mention last week. Did someone say, “Kiss of the Spider Woman trailer”??? ‘Cause we’ve got a Kiss of the Spider Woman trailer! It looks beautiful; shut up and take my money! I’m so down for Diego Luna in a live-action movie musical.

All right. Onto our regularly schedule Y tu Luna también review:

And we’re off! The first part of 3Below’s two-part premiere isn’t one of my favorite episodes, given that it’s mostly exposition and action, but it sets up the story effectively and ends on a nice springboard that will launch us into the rest of the series.

You know how, on Trollhunters, Aja and Krel are perplexing and loveable but shifty? Like they’re hiding something but really badly? Well, they’re aliens! Alien royals, in fact. On their home world of Akiridion-5, the siblings’ coronation is thrown into chaos when the treacherous General Morando stages a coup. With the help of two of their family’s trusted soldiers, Krel and Aja are forced to flee.

I went into Trollhunters already knowing about 3Below and the fact that Aja and Krel are aliens, so I’m not sure how someone who went in blind might have reacted to such a major story shift for this new series. Akiridion-5 is drawn lightly but well as a technologically advanced society peopled by diverse energy-based life forms. The monarchs, Krel and Aja’s parents, value tradition and legacy but are patient when their kids don’t always measure up to that. When Morando makes his attack, their first concern is getting the kids to safety.

The character of the week is one Varvatos Vex, one of the soldiers protecting Aja and Krel during the coup and the one who actually accompanies them off the planet. Amusingly voiced by Nick Offerman, Varvatos takes a rather Sontaran view of battle and honor. When he’s supposed to duel with Krel at the coronation ceremony, he promises the newly appointed king-in-waiting “the honor of a glorious death!” (The king drawls, “Vex, always with the death.”) He’s rough and hulking and refers to himself in the third person. “Macho soldier obsessed with a glorious death” isn’t the most original character type out there, but Offerman makes it fun while still giving the role a bit of heart.

The opening episode also gives us a firmer foundation on Aja and Krel as characters. Aja is most definitely a free spirit, the sort of princess who runs away from her own coronation because she doesn’t want a life that’s been prescribed for her. She’s tough, athletic, and has strong heroic instincts—when the coup kicks off, she’s separated from the rest of the family, and she immediately goes to work trying to protect civilians from getting hurt in the fray. Aja’s very independent-minded, which means she can be a little selfish when she gets myopic over what she wants, but when the chips are down, she has a good heart and wants to be a good person.

If Aja chafes at the idea of being queen one day, Krel balks at the idea of being king. Unlike his sister, he doesn’t try to reject his mantle or run away from it—Aja’s stunt means he’s left to face the coronation on his own—but doubts eat at him, and he asks his father, “What if I’m not ready to be a king?”

One thing I like about Krel is that he’s simultaneously self-assured and insecure. When it comes to anything tech-related, he’s the man and he knows it, and it thrills him when something he’s tinkering with comes together. But he also knows what his weak spots are and worries over them. He doesn’t have Aja’s athleticism, and even in (what’s supposed to be) a ceremonial combat demonstration, he knows he has to rely on his inventions to try and give him an edge.

I’d say episode 1 sets up Aja a little more so than Krel, but Diego Luna still gets some nice moments here. I like his conversation with his father before the coronation, and he has a lovely heart-to-heart with Aja after they escape. As scared as he is, he tries to reassure his sister that it’ll be all right, even as he admits he doesn’t know how. And we get a bit of levity from Krel too. When their ship is damaged during their getaway, he gets to work trying to fix it—Luna’s timing is fantastic on, “Okay, not so bad! …Oh, no, no, it’s bad.” And at the end, as the Akiridions ponder how to blend into their new surroundings, I love the metaness of Krel asking, “I do not understand. What is a LAT-ino?”