The Devil’s Chord
Story 305, Season 1 Episode 2
Doctor: The Fifteenth Doctor
Companions: Ruby Sunday
The confidence of the Fifteenth Doctor’s era continues with an incredibly inventive episode that succeeds despite some shaky pacing.
The Review
Doctor Who hasn’t gone 60 years being the same thing. I can only imagine the uproar once the Third Doctor era ditched even traveling in the TARDIS. This new era is lighter, bouncier, and has a clearly different energy to the past. After an unexplained six month gap, Ruby is ready to go where she wants to and see…the Beatles record their first album! The Doctor can’t believe how good an idea this is, and in 60s fashion they arrive at Abbey Road and find the Beatles making intentionally horrible music. The Doctor and Ruby talk to Paul McCartney and John Lennon, who let’s be honest, look nothing like the real thing, but it still somehow works. The idea that a world without music would eventually crumble to dust is a compelling one, as 2024 has long turned into a nuclear wasteland. Still, the episode felt a bit disjointed to me, great scenes but the actual direction of the episode seemed quite obtuse for a while.
Joining our main duo in absolutely bringing the energy is drag legend Jinkx Monsoon as the Toymaker’s daughter: Maestro. It’s an incredibly chaotic performance starting from the cold open emerging from a piano, killing a guy, and starting to play the theme music. A scene where the Doctor creates a blanket of silence and they try to stalk him was very innovative, and the final musical battle was a lot of fun. The day gets saved by the genius of the Beatles, and the Maestro is sent packing, but hopefully not for good. Then we get a big musical dance number to top it all off, which was just a good bit of fun. If that annoyed you, please lighten up, this is Doctor Who. Other odds and ends: Christmas music is in Ruby’s soul apparently, the first time Susan’s name has spoken out loud since Attack of the Cybermen (are we finally doing this?), and ‘the one who waits’ is coming. Also the Doctor thinking music that attacked Ruby was ‘non-diegetic’ was a really funny line.
The confidence continued with this story, and I appreciate how boldly this era is charting a course. Maybe 40 years from now people will be trying to emulate a Gatwa era story with this tone. I wish it all hung together better, but this is certainly one people will remember from this season much more than Space Babies.
8.75/10: Some bonus points for inventiveness from last episode. Seriously, that was a very lengthy explanation of Susan!
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