Doctor Who ‘The Story and the Engine’ review: Just a trim, thanks

Spoilers for “The Story and the Engine.”

Physician Who lives and dies by the standard of its writing and appearing way over nearly anything on TV. Audiences could demand massive explosions and trippy visuals however its finest work is usually completed in small rooms. The Disney period started with an episode that, for all its shiny extra, rested its massive second on Catherine Tate’s acting. Now, because the Disney period doubtlessly attracts to its finish, it’s as soon as once more highlighting what a sensible script and nice actors can do. “The Story and the Engine” is a stellar episode and an indication of what Physician Who may appear like a yr or two from now.

To get Belinda dwelling, the Physician takes the Vindicator to Lagos, Nigeria, to piggyback on the nation’s communications community. However there’s one more reason — he desires to go to his favourite barbership, Omo’s. The TARDIS can minimize the Physician’s hair, nevertheless it’s not the identical — particularly now he’s residing for the primary time (that we all know of) as a Black man. A visit to Omo’s is an opportunity to each get a trim and really feel accepted, telling tales and laughing along with his buddies.

Belinda stays within the TARDIS whereas the Physician heads out, previous lacking folks posters and indicators warning folks to remain away. As quickly because the Physician crosses the edge into Omo’s, the TARDIS begins blaring purple alert, a lot to Belinda’s confusion. The lacking individuals are right here, within the barbershop, however Omo is not in cost, having misplaced management to the mysterious (and unnamed) Barber.

The Barber has stored the boys hostage, slicing their hair frequently, with each telling him a narrative as he does. Every story is broadcast on the within of the store’s window, and as quickly as they’re completed, their hair grows again. The tales aren’t for leisure, however to gasoline an unlimited robotic spider traversing a metaversal internet. Just one particular person is allowed to depart the store, Abena, who brings the boys meals every day to maintain them alive.

Naturally, an immortal time traveler is a incredible useful resource for tales, however his first story is that of Belinda staying behind after work to save lots of a girl’s life. Whereas the opposite males’s tales are rendered in animation, we really see Belinda’s story as reside motion. And, as soon as the Physician’s hair is shorn, it grows again, prepared for his subsequent flip to be an unwilling storyteller. Belinda, after asking the TARDIS to point out her the place to go, heads to Omo’s, the place the Physician is surprisingly comfortable to see her as she, too, will get trapped within the barbershop.

Abena is hiding a secret, and has been hostile to the Physician ever since she met him. That’s as a result of she’s actually the daughter of Anansi, the spider-esque trickster god of Akan folklore. Her father defeated the Physician many (many!) lifetimes in the past, insisting they marry her, however the Physician skipped city, leaving her on her personal. [Casual viewers totally lost as to what was going on at that point and why the Doctor suddenly turned into someone else, head down to Mrs. Flood Corner for an explanation.]

In some unspecified time in the future in historical past, Abena teamed up with the Barber, who isn’t a god himself, however a type of fiction-weaving determine. He advised tales to entertain and maintain the gods, designing the dimensional internet his large spider robotic is at the moment traversing. In some unspecified time in the future, he’d outlived his usefulness and was solid out by his masters, and so he’s utilizing folks’s tales to energy his story engine. When it reaches its vacation spot, he’ll wipe out all of the gods of fable and legend and take their place.

Abena, horrified that her circle of relatives will probably be worn out within the Barber’s revenge, opts to change sides and tends to the Physician’s hair. She tells the story of how African folks underneath slavery would braid messages and maps as cornrows to evade detection. The Physician’s hair is now a map of the story engine’s mazelike corridors, main him to its beating coronary heart. When the Barber tries to cease him, he (wrongly) invokes Hemingway, speaking in regards to the energy of his six phrase story.

Oh, however we’re 5 minutes from the top, so the Physician saves the day by, uh, enjoying a highlights reel of all his prior incarnations. The Barber, nonetheless, is a modified man, and comes again with the Physician because the story engine itself collapses underneath the sheer weight of the Physician’s life story. With everybody free, Omo declares he’s retiring, and palms the position to the Barber, who will use his powers for good. Abena opts to half methods together with her good friend, and the Physician and Belinda head again to the TARDIS.

“The Story and the Engine” is an outstanding debut from British-Nigerian poet and playwright Inua Ellams. The principles of the barbershop and premise of the story is obvious sufficient to understand earlier than the title sequence has rolled. And little time is wasted getting the Physician by way of the door of Omo’s store, enabling him to interact with the issue at hand. If there’s a problem, it’s the identical one which’s dogged each episode this season: the overstuffed narrative that picks up and drops concepts in minutes that one other collection would have milked for weeks on finish.

The narrative and thematic density right here consists of nods towards folklore versus the mechanical copy of storytelling. An exploration of the character of neighborhood, household, security, betrayal, love and the worth of revenge. Hell, the antagonist is a author who’s pissed off their overlords minimize ‘em free and took the credit score that was theirs to say. To not point out, Physician Who is having to make a case for its personal continued existence given the behind the scenes rumors. That’s a lot to cram into 45 minutes that you just simply need every little thing to decelerate and let issues breathe.

As a lot as Physician Who could be seen by the vast majority of its viewers on a streaming platform, it’s nonetheless constrained by its broadcast runtime. Like the remainder of this run, this episode is simply begging for extra time to permit its textures to be higher explored. Actually, as I lay in mattress after watching the episode, I used to be occupied with what number of of those episodes would work nicely within the old-school half-hour format. Three half-hours would give us extra time within the barbershop and a extra earned ending. “The Story and the Engine” is already a chamber piece — make the CGI spider a barely-seen matte portray and use inventory footage of Lagos and this might have simply been completed within the ‘80s. Once more, given the rumors that, with out Disney’s money, the BBC can’t afford to supply Physician Who, we’re seeing how nice it may be when it’s simply received 5 or 6 actors in a single room.

That’s to not say the additional cash isn’t welcome: I additionally need to, once more, single out how a lot nice work the remainder of the manufacturing group is doing this yr. The story engine’s coronary heart, a beautifully-made heart-tree-brain sculpture, was one other nice piece of design work. And any episode of something that makes use of Blick Bassey’s “Aké” as a needle drop deserves a spherical of applause.

A Nigerian barbershop just isn’t the same old place for an episode of Physician Who to play out, nevertheless it’s additionally completely excellent. In any case, one of many richest seams of inspiration the present has is to seek out the magic within the edges of the mundane. What may very well be extra magic than folks sitting round, telling tales and forming communities by way of nothing greater than the slicing of hair.

Mrs. Flood Nook

Mrs. Flood will get a tiny cameo this episode, popping into the hospital through the Physician’s story of Belinda’s heroism. It’s ambiguous if the Physician is aware of Mrs. Flood was there, or if her presence was just for the viewers’s profit. Given the extra standalone nature of this episode, we shouldn’t ask an excessive amount of of Mrs. Flood this week.

It’s definitely fascinating to see what Belinda does and doesn’t find out about how the world of the Physician works. My assumption continues to be that the Physician briefed Belinda on the fundamentals and even the extra superior particulars off-screen. Belinda’s sensible and succesful sufficient that she’d ask the precise inquiries to be taught that the TARDIS wardrobe can also be in a position to fashion hair.

I’m curious, nonetheless, about why the Physician was so comfortable to see Belinda as she walked into the entice. And why Belinda knew what to do when the Physician made his break for the story engine within the conclusion. That the costumes have modified since “The Well” implies that point has handed for these two, so possibly their rapport has grown within the interim.

In the event you’ll permit me to exit on a limb, what if the true id of Mrs. Flood or this season’s massive unhealthy is in actual fact Fenric? Hear me out: “The Story and the Engine” shares a premise with 1988’s “The Best Present within the Galaxy.” In that episode, the Gods of Ragnarok have occupied a circus to gasoline their starvation for leisure, killing anybody who displeases them. The Barber on this story mentions he wrote tales for a number of Norse gods and tries to move himself off as one in all them earlier than his actual id is revealed.

Now, if you happen to recall, one other Norse god the Physician tussled with in that period was Fenric, the villain from 1989’s “The Curse of Fenric.” Which was one of many classic-series tales highlighted for the sixtieth anniversary’s Tales of the TARDIS run. Given Davies’ shot an extra episode of that run to introduce new viewers to Sutekh earlier than he appeared in final yr’s finale, possibly the groundwork was already laid to carry Fenric again.

Yeah, you’re proper, it’s not going to be Fenric.

When was the Physician a Black girl?

The 2020 season of Physician Who made a lot of controversial adjustments to the inspiration of the collection. Showrunner Chris Chibnall opted to dump the collection’ authentic intentionally ambiguous backstory in favor of one thing somewhat extra inventory sci-fi. Earlier than then, our lead character was an outsider who left their world and stumbled round studying to grow to be one thing of a hero. The present’s first 4 seasons construct to the second when the Physician says “There are some corners of the universe which have bred probably the most horrible issues. Issues which act towards every little thing we imagine in. They have to be fought.” Like a variety of early Physician Who, the character’s improvement over time wasn’t essentially seen till you look again on the period as a complete.

Chibnall threw all of that out, insisting that the Physician wasn’t simply probably the most Particular Time Lord Of All Time, however the determine who gave the Time Lords the ability of regeneration within the first place. In a single season, he’d turned the Physician into the equal of Adam and Eve and Jesus all of sudden. He additionally eradicated the collection’ longstanding regeneration restrict, saying the Physician can change their physique an infinite quantity of occasions. Which reasonably undermines the motion and saps the dramatic pressure from episodes like “The Caves of Androzani” and “The Eleventh Hour.”

These adjustments gave the Physician a complete as-yet unseen first and second act, with the grownup Physician working for the Time Lord equal of the CIA earlier than having their reminiscence wiped earlier than the beginning of the collection correct. The episode “Fugitive of the Judoon” revealed the id of one in all these docs, The Fugitive Physician, performed by actress Jo Martin — the one time the Physician had been performed by a Black actor earlier than Ncuti Gatwa and solely the second time (canonically) they’d been performed by a girl after Jodie Whittaker. The Fugitive Physician’s place within the collection’ historical past is left ambiguous, and she or he principally spent that point on deep cowl missions.

When Davies’ return was introduced, I used to be privately hoping he would very loudly unwind a lot of Chibnall’s Timeless Baby story arc. Trapping the Physician within the hacky sci-fi position of chosen one felt like an act of near-fatal violence towards the collection. There have been many different secret origin tales for the Physician over its sixty-year tenure, however the others have been principally content material to sit down in implication reasonably than bellowed from the rooftops.

It’s right here I need to provide but extra reward for Russell T. Davies, who opted to Sure-And Chibnall’s hackiest impulses. He has managed to combine the Timeless Baby story in a means that serves the character of the Physician supremely successfully. Quite than specializing in the ancestral historical past he’s targeted on the Physician as an orphan, taken benefit of by merciless aliens. It offers larger weight each to his relationships along with his companions, and to the necessity for belonging that takes him to Omo’s. And the occasions of the Flux miniseries have damaged the universe so totally that it’s opened the door for the pantheon of gods to enter it. To not point out, it provides a automobile by way of which we are able to get extra tales of the Fugitive Physician that will get it out from underneath the extra reactionary storytelling underneath which she was created.