"The Ghost Monument" by Chris Chibnall, directed by Mark Tonderai. Spoilers after the cut.
We get no teaser so it's straight into the new opening credits which we didn't see last week. Segun Akinola is only the second composer for Doctor Who since it returned, and much has been made of his new arrangement of the theme tune sampling Delia Derbyshire's original one. This is matched in the visuals - so far 21st century Who credits have been inspired by the 1970s time tunnel, the 1980s starfield or a mix of the two, and now we get the first sequence inspired by the first three Doctors' kaleidoscope sequence. I like the result, it's eerie and disconcerting, and suggests the series is aiming to go back to a more spooky and mysterious tone rather than bombastic action. That's not, though, reflected in the show itself.
Instead the Doctor and her new companions get caught up in a very vaguely defined race for a cash prize - the Hunger Games with a no-killing rule, a race with no apparent sense of urgency in the only two remaining competitors, who despite a few attempts to make them look hardened don't come across as dark and ruthless enough to have seen off 4000 rivals, and a galaxy-wide, famous event that nobody except its organiser Ilin seems to be paying any attention to. And yeah, the villain being Art Malik done up as some sort of Sheikh playing with people's lives in a tent in the desert is pretty problematic. Also why do futuristic holograms always crackle and break up when someone puts a hand through part of them?
Ryan not calling Graham grandad is obviously being set up to be a big emotional moment later in the season when he finally does but... Why? Is it that unusual for people to call step-parents or step-grandparents by their names? If you'd raised someone as your son since he was a baby and he didn't want to call you dad I can see that being upsetting to some people, but if you married his nan when he was already a teenager then why do you even care? Surely in these circumstances him calling you grandad is what's a bit weird.
I pretty much forgot Yas was there but hey, so did the Doctor. To her face. More than once. We've just had a more prickly Doctor in Peter Capaldi, we don't need Jodie Whittaker going all Six with her companions when she's going for a much warmer characterisation. LOL no, I don't really think that was a character note, I just think Chibnall forgot about Yas and transferred that to the Doctor to cover it up. Still, the attitude to violence remains consistently Doctorish (guns are BAD but what is to all intents and purposes a massive bomb is FINE.) Another great message for ver kidz is when a cigar saves the day. Well OK, it's a cigar that lights itself when anyone in its general vicinity snaps their fingers, so I wouldn't call it a cigar so much as a cunning device for making your pocket catch fire when you least expect it.
Still, there's not one but three new monsters this episode! They are some bits of cloth with the voice of Ian Gelder, some generic robots, and some flesh-eating water that looks exactly like normal water and has no effect on anyone or anything whatsoever.
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