HiJenx

Doctor Who is just knocking them out of the ball park this year. This trilogy is shaping up to be of a similar quality to the one from 2015 in that it’s been excellent and that it has been a three parter with totally different types of episodes. Parts one and two at the very least have proven to be so. Even though I missed the name of the writer a the start due to being distracted by a BBQ bacon pizza (with pineapple naturally), it was soon obvious to me that this was the work of Peter Harness, the lovely fellow who did the excellent Zygon two parter in series 9. He is very good at writing UNIT and believable military situations. This was no exception. He rose to the challenge of interaction between the US, Russian and Chinese armed forces.

I liked that although we started out in a similar situation to the previous one with Bill on her date, the changes started immediately. The virtual scenario we saw last week wasn’t the one the monks had thought was our most desperate hour. This time, instead of the Pope popping in, Bill’s date was interrupted by the Secretary General of the UN and part of UNIT. This was an especially dark episode in many ways. The writer of the Guardian’s fab Doctor Who reviews pointed out that due to themes of terrorism and the end of the world, the BBC probably would have pulled this if it had aired any earlier in the week due to the events that happened in Manchester. I’m glad they didn’t. The darkest times are precisely when we need things like this.

Such a cliffhanger! I do hope Nardole is alright. I will be thoroughly annoyed with Steven Moffat if killing off Matt Lucas is part of his master plan. I have thoroughly enjoyed him, especially in the period when the Doctor was blind and he had to say obvious things about the visual situation. He did that brilliantly. If anything, I’m a bit bummed the Doctor got his sight back as that will surely be gone now. And of course, the reason he got his sight back is most worrying. What has Ms. Potts agreed to?

9/10