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So, to cheer ourselves up this week PJ and I have been watching the new season of Doctor Who. I know the whole deal with Disney+ will probably turn out to have a lot of hidden costs, but I personally love it that I can now watch Doctor Who episodes as they air instead of three weeks after I’ve been spoiled on them by Tumblr.
Anyway, due to decreased bandwidth I’m shoving all three new episodes into one post, so here’s the short story:
Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat are both back on their bullshit. I still have a much higher tolerance for RTD’s bullshit than for Moffat’s. Nevertheless, qua episode, “Boom” is probably the strongest of the three, whereas for cheering up, nothing’s gonna beat “The Devil’s Chord.” At least probably not any time soon.
So…not surprisingly, I suppose, I feel about “Space Babies” much the same way I felt about “The Corbomite Maneuver” on rewatch. To show you what I mean by that, here’s my response to the Balok reveal:
“Then, they go on over to the alien ship, and…I dunno. I told [Mrs. P] she can’t read the review before she watches the episode, because there’s something just ineffably Star Trek about that moment. The whole ‘twist’ about Balok is just so goofy, and yet you start to feel that the show is very nearly aware of and parodying its own goofiness and that the characters maybe kind of get it. And the use of Clint Howard…as Balok is so bizarre. His voice is dubbed to make him sound like an (admittedly elfin) adult, but he’s so clearly a child…and the dubbing is not exactly masterful either, and then there’s the trania punchbowl, and…you kind of have to sit there and say, well really, can I be mad about how bad this is? Isn’t this what I signed up for?”
And that is basically how I think you have to approach “Space Babies” if you’ve already seen RTD’s Doctor Who oeuvre: Isn’t this what I signed up for? If you can handle the Sleveen, the plastic monsters, the Sontarans, the Daleks even, can you get mad about inexplicably double-aged space babies zooming around in strollers running a spaceship which is being terrorized by a snot monster? You cannot. Much better instead to relax and enjoy the dynamic between Fifteen and Ruby, which I am really enjoying. The chemistry is great and so far they’re having fun and not worrying about whether they’re heading toward a Tragic Romance or whatever. The whole scene in which he tells the beslimed Ruby what it is she’s been slimed with is priceless, plus there’s some quality running around in corridors. I also liked the montage of all the officers signing off with their individualized fuck-yous to management. True to RTD form, of course, it’s the janitor who decides fuck this, I’m going to stow away and look after them. I admit to being creeped out by the voices of all these British six-year-olds coming out of these unconvincingly dubbed little toddlers, but I guess it’s the price of admission.
Moving on to “The Devil’s Chord”: OK, what you have to know about PJ is that since their tweendom the way they approach any new piece of media is by finding the gayest of the villains and immediately identifying with them. And PJ is having a tough week. So God bless this moment:
For me, well, starting with the Toymaker we are basically dealing with Batman villains, but that is 100% fine with me, because one of my very earliest little proto-fandoms was the 1966 Adam West Batman:
The plot is impossible, but 85% of Doctor Who plots are impossible, so we will pass that over. Again, as much as I loved the final musical number and as sympathetic as I am to all the pathos about what happens to a world without music and to Ruby’s performance of her song for her sad lesbian friend Trudy, all the best things about this episode have to do with the performances from the three leads. Jinkx Monsoon climbs out of that piano like: I came here to serve diva and eat scenery, and I’m almost out of scenery. The Doctor and Ruby once again do a great job of matching each other’s energy while remaining in their very different characters, and they run up and down the emotional keyboard with great agility and expression. Maestro is basically like what would happen if Mama Rose from Gypsy got bit by a radioactive condensed score. Yes, it’s over the top. Yes, it’s too much. Yes, it’s histrionic and messy and sometimes grotesque. You ever been to the opera? And also you could end every Doctor Who episode with a musical number and I would be there for it every time. Your mileage may vary.
And now we come to Steven Moffat’s contribution, “Boom.”
I saw the clerical collars and I kind of made a noise of frustration and PJ was like “what” and I was like “all right let me try to explain Moffat’s Thing about Religion” and eventually I gave up because we were trying to follow the plot. So before I get to what’s good about this episode let me tell you why his Thing about Religion makes me tired:
- Moffat wants to be doing a critique of organized religion/the Church/specifically sometimes the Catholic Church/specifically sometimes the Anglican Church
- I’ve been both Catholic and Anglican (well, Episcopalian) and I well know there is much to critique.
- Moffat insists on doing this critique in a shallow, superficial way which is somehow both cliched and incoherent and just makes me wish he would stop.
And “Boom” is the worst so far. Moffat enjoys putting clerical collars on people wearing space-age body armor and carrying enormous blasters, to make the already made point that the official Church is hypocritical in its participation in imperial conquest. Also, “faith” leads people to blindly not question anything. That is as far as we get in “Boom” with the critique of organized religion and institutional Christianity, and it makes me angry. There are so many other things about the world of “Boom” that are so much better developed–the ambulances, for instance–that his deployment of the clerical collar just seems all the more gratuitous and trite.
That being said, this episode shows that Moffat hasn’t completely lost his touch when it comes to crafting individual episodes. The land mine premise is of course not novel, but Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson absolutely sell it. Their fear of the BOOM is extremely convincing, and Ruby’s handling of her part in the counterbalance maneuever makes you fall in love with her all over again. Splice, Mundy, Mundy’s wannabe boyfriend, and Splice’s dad also make strong impressions in their comparatively limited screen time. And at the same time you have things like their conversation about the word “smelted” that just add that extra richness to the drama plot.
The solution, of course, is pants. As I grumped to PJ, “The thing about Moffat episodes is that the solution is always essentially magical.” But again: can I get mad about that? After “The Doctor Dances” brought me into the fandom, don’t I basically have to say, when Fifteen is bouncing around yelling that the whole warmongering corporation has been brought to its knees by one AI dad: isn’t this what I signed up for?
So yeah. Still here for it; and ever more here for Fifteen, who is growing on me rapidly, and for Ruby Sunday, who has clambered over many obstacles to win my heart.