Sheffield Wide Web

I've seen a few places say what a clever pun on Anarchy in the UK the title "Arachnids in the UK" is, which is handy because if it hadn't been pointed out to me I'd never have realised it was clever, I'd have thought it was really reaching for a weak pun that didn't quite work. And let's face it, if there's one thing I know about, it's weak puns that don't quite work.

"Arachnids in the UK" by Chris Chibnall, directed by Sallie Aprahamian. Spoilers after the cut.

Of course there's no reason we should have expected subtlety from the man whose Doctor Who career began with the "aliens who feed on orgasms" episode of Torchwood, and Chibbers' heavy-handed moralising about litter and hubris is handing things on a plate to the trolls who've been grumbling about political correctness gone mad since the series returned. And if it wasn't clear enough that Chris Noth is playing a Trump-like figure, let's just flat out mention Trump!

Another redesigned element turns up this week with a new Time Vortex, which again is all scary and sinister in a way the rest of the series itself doesn't actually seem to be aiming for. Much like the TARDIS interior I don't like the Time Vortex being completely redesigned quite so often as it is, I mean it's a good design but I like a bit of continuity in these things - improvements in technology will make these changes happen anyway, no need to keep doing it for the sake of it. Chibbers' (yeah I'm going with that) start reminds me a bit of John Nathan-Turner's in Tom Baker's final year: Big rebrand, a crowded TARDIS (I vote for Bradley Walsh to get Adriced out at the end of the series, who's with me?) and the Doctor's outfits going from a general style with a few interchangeable items to one very specific costume, which must be getting a bit ripe by now after all that running around. Also I know the Doctor's always name-dropped a bit but Amelia Earhart makes it four episodes in a row now, I don't want Jodie Whittaker to be the smug name-dropping Doctor, bring back the MacGyver Doctor from "The Woman Who Fell to Earth."

Still, now we know why the TARDIS has got the entire police box interior as a kind of hallway - much easier to just film an empty prop on location than have to green-screen in a TARDIS interior.

Oh, the story? No, there wasn't really, was there? A giant spider infestation throughout Sheffield, except only the people directly involved in the story noticed it. Mandip Gill is still suffering from a character who doesn't feel fully-formed, even in an episode built around her, and when Tosin Cole's Ryan isn't defined by his dyspraxia he's mainly just weirdly naïve and dopey. Again I think this is a crowded TARDIS problem - the companions are always kind of blank slates for the Doctor to explain the plot to, and when you then split that over three characters you don't give yourself much scope to turn them into rounded people.

Still, the story was essentially resolved by internet pedantry, namely the one about how Attack of the 50 Foot Woman/The Incredible Shrinking Man etc wouldn't really work because if you changed their size so much their lungs wouldn't work etc. Maybe from now on every alien threat will be solved by a sentence beginning "Actually, I think you'll find..."