Doctor Who (2005): Series 12 Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the latest season of Doctor Who!

Series 12 was apparently Jodie Whittaker's second season as the Doctor (and Chris Chibnall's second year as showrunner), but I only vaguely remember there being a first one. It seems so long ago now. In fact the show disappeared for exactly a year after 2019's New Year's Day special! It would've been the longest gap between episodes since the series was resurrected in 2005, but 2016's hiatus has it beat by one day, due to being a leap year.

It apparently took them bloody ages to film the last couple of seasons, possibly because they were always flying around the world to shoot on location, I don't actually know. It's worked out well for me though, as I've only got 10 episodes to cover here. Sure I still have to somehow fit everything I want to say into 1/10th of the space of one of my normal reviews, but with these episodes I don't expect that'll be a problem.

Oh by the way, I wrote the first draft of these reviews right after each episode aired, so if I sound weirdly clueless about what's going to happen next, that's because I genuinely didn't know at the time of writing. I should also inform you that there will be SPOILERS below, but I won't be spoiling anything that comes after series 12. Partly because it hasn't aired yet and nobody knows anything about it, but mostly because I don't want to.

---

When I review a bunch of episodes in one go I like to give them review scores, so you can tell at a glance that I thought one story was better than a different story. These scores are calculated by me pulling a number out of my head from 1 to 9, and then adding or subtracting a point if it did something to deserve it. Like a mediocre story might get a boost if Yaz actually gets something to do.

10	It's a 1-9 scale.
9	Well, maybe more of a 1-8 scale in this case.
8	Actually I don't think you need to know about 8 this time either.
7	A decent episode that didn't give me much to complain about.
6	Either a decent episode with flaws, or an alright episode with something I liked.
5	It was watchable, but I was on the verge of losing my interest.
4	I was definitely still listening to most of it.
3	It was on, I caught a bit of it.
2	Not my kind of television at all really.
1	Not anyone's kind of television.

Doctor Who - Series Twelve
12-01	Spyfall, Part One	6
The Tardis crew are recruited by MI6 to investigate an alien attack on Earth's spies. Yaz and Ryan go undercover to interrogate Lenny Henry while The Doctor and Graham are stuck out in the Outback with the mysterious O and sinister beings of light who can walk through walls. The main thing that surprised me about Spyfall, Part One was how different it felt from Chris Chibnall's first season. The series has slipped back into a more typical Doctor Who feel and I'm not sure that's a good thing. I mean I want the series to be proper Doctor Who, but I'd rather Chibnall played to his strengths instead of putting out a poor imitation of a Russell T Davis or a Steven Moffat story. The episode alternates between horror, characters in a house being clueless, and outright James Bond homage, so the tone's all over the place. Unfortunately the spy spoof aspects were a bit overdone, with composer Segun Akinola deciding to 'Murray Gold' all over the place like we're back in 2005, and the mysteries really dragged. I kept waiting for that cliffhanger ending to come and was disappointed over and over. It's an hour of weirdness without any real explanations, just lots of pieces of the puzzle. Like there's 93% human Lenny Henry and his evil Google, people getting kidnapped to the strand dimension, light ghost aliens that walk through walls, multiple Earths, and the Master's apparently behind it all! Unfortunately I wasn't surprised about the Master's appearance because it was all over Twitter's trends. My mistake for not watching it live. Still, I didn't call that he was going to be O. I'm not sure about the actor yet, but the character has reverted to gleeful evil after Missy's face turn, which is a bit of a shame. On the other hand, I suppose Thirteen does need a good nemesis more than she needs another friend. Plus it was still nice seeing the characters have fun with their casino adventure and their bulletproof bikes even if I wasn't having fun myself, and the plane cliffhanger is a good omen. The Doctor has to finally do something clever to get them out of this one! Surely!
12-02	Spyfall, Part Two	6
The Doctor time travels to 1830s and 1940s then averts the crisis off-screen, while Ryan, Graham and Yaz go on the run with only a laser shoe to defend them from the aliens. Spyfall's second half is interesting, as the predestination paradox on the plane and the Doctor's time travel adventure was very Moffat, while the 'companions on the run' plot was extremely RTD. It was also entirely pointless as they had no impact on the story whatsoever! Though it did at least give them a chance to shine and outwit both the light ghosts and 93% Lenny Henry's forces without the Doctor's help. Meanwhile the Doctor went and met a pair of famous women in history because... I'm not really sure. It felt like Chibnall got one of those themed stamp collections and was inspired, but couldn't be bothered to do enough research to build a story around them or even tell us much about them. Rosa this is not. The episode contrasts traditional spy work, James Bond spy gadgets, and tech firms spying on users, and I'm not sure it really pulls its themes together by the end. It's all about the dangers of giving services your data and how awesome inventing computers is, but 93% Lenny Henry's big scheme involves using people's hardware against them in a way that no one could've predicted, so I guess the moral of the story is... shit happens. I don't think he's really thought things through though, as people need their DNA and brains to live, so either they're going to put the whole of humanity on life support or their biological hard drives will die even faster than regular ones. Then again what can you expect from someone who rewrote 7% of his own genetic code with selfies, porn and Steam games. Still, at least 93% Lenny Henry was smart enough to get away, unlike the poor Master who got Curse of Fatal Death'd. But he had the last laugh with the reveal that he destroyed Gallifrey. The lore's really coming back strong this season. I really hope the people living there survived though, as undoing the Doctor's cathartic victory in the 50th anniversary episode would be a crappy thing for Chibnall to do. Overall the episode was less boring than the first part, but it has considerably more morally suspect mind wiping. I mean if it had to happen, why not let Ada Lovelace and Noor Inayat Khan volunteer, and turn it into something heroic? At least the three of them got to have a fun laminating montage first, which was easily the best part of the whole story for me.
12-03	Orphan 55	5
When a resort on a hostile planet is under siege from monsters that breathe CO₂, the Doctor leads everyone out in a truck, and then leads them all back inside again. Some survive. Also it was Earth all along because of climate change. This was the most 80s episode of Doctor Who since Kerblam! last season (which is weird because it's by the guy who wrote It Takes You Away). It even had the makeup of an 80s serial, with the lemmings and the cat person. Perhaps all the budget went on the monster costumes, which actually looked pretty decent... sometimes. I think they hit the limits of how good a man in a suit can look when they put them in bright lighting. The episode turned out to be about three things: First there's the daughter who feels so neglected by her mother that she tried to get everyone in her resort killed by a. a virus, b. monsters and c. a giant bomb, in that order. She's like if Ace took a very dark turn. Second it's about the morality of building a fakation spot on a hostile planet surrounded by monsters to earn the cash to terraform it. The Doctor is very judgmental about it, but not because the visitors weren't told about the risk, or because the terraforming will kill the Dregs, she's just in 'this is bad and you're greedy for doing it' mode in general without really explaining why. It's the same as the resort on Midnight and she didn't have a problem with that! Third it's about how climate change has destroyed the world, because it's the The Mysterious Planet twist again! Unfortunately they deliver it in about the most eye-rolling way, and hammer home their warning with a picture of a fantasy mutant instead of something horrifically realistic. The episode had me along for the ride for the most part and I was curious to see how the pieces fell into place. Unfortunately the story went off the rails and the pieces went flying everywhere, leaving me confused and depressed.
12-04	Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror	6
Nikola Tesla is in trouble when a group of scorpions decide to kidnap him. This one was alright I suppose, with good acting from the guest stars (especially Goran Višnjić as Tesla), but I don't exactly feel driven to analyse it or have actual opinions. It happened, it's over, and if the season continues like this then Doctor Who will be steadily sliding down my list of things to watch. I wish I could pinpoint exactly why I'm so indifferent to it though, as this had an extremely Doctor Who story and nothing about it really bothered me (well, except for the villain). It was nice to see the return of Amoral American Businessman Who Shoots the Monsters and Gets Away Scot Free after his last appearance in Arachnids in the UK, even though he had a different name and actor this time. We also got the 'alien device is actually searching for someone' reveal, returning from The Woman Who Fell to Earth, and the Racnoss queen from The Runaway Bride, except now she's a scorpion queen and 150% more Farscape. I think they must have shot her in extreme close up all the time to try to conceal that she's only slightly more convincing than the Scorpion King, and only slightly more intimidating than a Pakled from Star Trek. Though I was impressed with the scorpions chasing Edison and Yaz down the street; that was really well done with all the practical effects interacting with the CGI. Plus I found it interesting that Edison isn't all that vilified by the story, while the invention-stealing queen has to be electrocuted with one of Tesla's totally safe inventions. Like Spyfall, Part 2 the Doctor got to team up with some historical figures, with at least one of them being a genius who played a huge role in the development of modern technology, and again we know they'll have a miserable ending afterwards. Though this time no memory wipes! Apparently it's no big deal to let Tesla and Edison know all this stuff. I've been spotting other patterns too, like there was another mention of a dead world, plus this is the fourth episode in a row to take place entirely on Earth.
12-05	Fugitive of the Judoon	7
A fairly routine adventure takes a shocking turn when the companions are kidnapped by Captain Jack Harkness, while the Doctor goes on a trip with... the Doctor. First I want to give a big thanks to Twitter and Google for spoiling me on the two big surprises. But even knowing that Jack Harkness was going to show up and strongly suspecting that Ruth was going to be the Doctor transformed by a chameleon arch, I still found this to be the most interesting episode this season by far. The episode put a lot of weight on that big reveal at the end, as scenes were spent building up the mystery, and it wouldn't have worked if the answer hadn't been so strange and chilling. Don't get me wrong, I really hate the implication that the Doctor's got a whole other set of regenerations that predate Hartnell and also flew around in a police box (that mindwipe in Spyfall had better not be foreshadowing), but the way it all played out was fascinating. It also kind of ruins my theory that I only enjoy Doctor Who when it's being an intelligent comedy, but whatever. Plus I loved Ruth Doctor and her future/retro Tardis immediately... even if she did overshadow the current Doctor by stealing scenes and solving problems. Sure she deliberately killed someone with a backfiring gun, but that's basically what Thirteen did to Tim Shaw with the DNA bombs, and she'd already tried hiding, so I can forgive her. So overall this gets a big thumbs up from me, even though they're still on Earth and Yaz was useless again. Plus I was a bit distracted trying to figure out where I recognised the other renegade alien from. Turns out he was in a sitcom called Game On from the 90s which I apparently must have watched a bit of.
12-06	Praxeus	6
The Tardis crew splits up to investigate three mysteries connected to an alien virus. It's a plastic virus that turns birds into killers! And the problem with our planet this week is... plastic pollution and viruses. Man Doctor Who is depressing lately. Praxeus was alright for an episode I suppose, maybe even above average for this season. The actors were fine, they visited lots of locations, it had a proper sci-fi problem for the Doctor to solve, and Graham got to sit down with someone and give good advice again, which is... good. Though afterwards I put an episode of Legends of Tomorrow on and realised to my horror that the series must be leeching the life out of Doctor Who. I mean the Legends episode wasn't that great, and I found some of the comedy grating, but it managed to have a standalone plot that pushed several arcs forward, it gave everyone in a massive team a moment to shine, it was hilariously dumb and surprisingly clever, and it was packed full of love and joy and enthusiasm. Doctor Who has just four characters to serve, it can go anywhere and be anything, and what it chose to be this time was a competent SYFY channel horror movie.
12-07	Can You Hear Me?	5
The companions suffer from weird dreams while the Doctor visits a hospital in 1830 Syria attacked by imaginary monsters. Lots of people get fingers in their ears and it's gross. This is apparently the first ever episode of Doctor Who to feature a question mark in its title! Only took them 57 years (Star Trek managed it in eight episodes). And the issue for this episode is... mental health. I'm pretty proud of myself for spotting that; not because it was subtle, but because it meant I stayed awake for most of it. I could really relate to Yaz in this story, with how she fell asleep during a movie. I could also relate to Ryan's concerns about experiencing more time than his friends, because it felt like I'd spent two hours watching this 50 minute episode. When I saw the bald guy materialise in the Tardis at the start my first thought was 'are they doing the Dream Lord again?' but the fingers flying off into people's ears gave me cause to rethink that. I kept thinking about the Dream Lord episode though, and how it was so much better than this one, or at least more fun to watch. This wasn't all bad though by any means. I liked the surprise animated exposition, I liked Yaz meeting the police officer who helped her out (and presumably inspired her to join the police), I liked the Doctor failing to come up with anything reassuring to say to Graham, and I liked the space station set. The threat turned out to be a pair of immortal gods who'd pissed off two entire civilisations to the point where they slammed their planets into each other to be rid of them. I'm not entirely sure why that was necessary to solve the problem, but it apparently was. I'm also not sure why they put a password lock on the cell they'd created, but it's lucky they did otherwise the Doctor wouldn't have been tricked into opening it, which she needed to do first before she could trap both gods inside. I honestly thought this story was going to set up the threat for the last few episodes, as these gods were clearly too much for the Doctor to deal with in the remaining 15 minutes... but she had it solved in half the time. Turns out all she had to do was sonic the ball, and that teleported both gods into the prison forever. Plus the nightmare monster was apparently useful somehow. Funny how that was the only nightmare creature to be manifested in reality, though that's possibly because everyone else's dreams were surprisingly mundane. Even if the episode didn't set up the villains for the finale I'm starting to feel like the season is setting up the companions leaving by the end. Yaz is worried she's just running away again, Ryan's worried he's becoming detached from his friends, and Graham's worried about his mortality. We haven't had much of an arc for them this year so this feels like significant foreshadowing.
12-08	The Haunting of Villa Diodati	6
The Tardis crew go to visit Mary Shelley on the night she's inspired to write Frankenstein but end up being attacked by the true inspiration for Frankenstein's monster! Also ghosts are real. And the eighth episode in a row to be set on Earth this season is... another horror story! It takes place during 1816, The Year Without a Summer, and I already knew a bit about the time period going in. But only because it's the title of a Rasputina song, which incidentally mentions Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein in the lyrics. Funny how she and everyone else in this story escaped being mindwiped, by the way. This was another story that started off as one thing and then took a sudden turn for the arc plot, and I think it was moderately successful at it. A time travelling blob of cyber metal that can warp perception isn't the most satisfying explanation for the weirdness in their haunted house, but it makes some sci-fi sense I suppose! I like it much more than the implication that ghosts are real and happened to choose that particular night to appear and get Graham a snack. Doctor Who and the supernatural aren't a good mix. Though I can understand why there'd be servants haunting the place, considering how many died in this story. Sorry guys, you're not historically important so you're all expendable I guess! The Doctor basically spent this story being confused until she finally got her chance to shine at the end and be The Doctor. She then utterly blew it and gave the Cyberium to her new nemesis, who let her live afterwards because... I dunno, she was about as threatening as the baby? This was the first appearance of the Last Cyberman mentioned by Jack a few episodes ago and he's a pretty decent antagonist I reckon. They did a good job putting retro elements into his look, and having his helmet smashed open to let us see the actor was a smart move. Granted it showed he wasn't as cybernetic as you'd expect, but he hasn't had the full cyber-treatment so it's fine. Overall I'd put this as an average episode, raised by the surprise appearance of the cyberman, lowered by an unsatisfying ending and a general feeling of 'meh'.
12-09	Ascension of the Cybermen	6
After the Doctor fails to rescue the last human refugees of a Cyberman war, she flies around for a bit. Ascension of the Cybermen is an episode all about what happens when you ignore Captain Jack Harkness and give the Last Cyberman what he wants. Turns out he's able to acquire a giant starship and restore a whole Cyberman army! Though now that I think about it, he stumbled across the ship accidentally while chasing a bunch of humans, who also stumbled across it accidentally, and the knowledge in the Cyberium didn't help him there at all. He didn't even use the Cyberium's perception twisting powers to mess with people! Oh well, I'm sure it'll have some relevance in part two... or would it be part three? I got a little more into this episode than most of the season, but that might just be because they're finally off Earth and doing stuff on alien worlds (ignore the obvious electricity pylons) and various spaceships. Though the episode did cut to Earth occasionally to show the life of Irish Superman, who got adopted by a kind couple, became a police officer, found he was invulnerable, retired as an old man, and was then mindwiped by his dad and boss, who hadn't aged in the meantime. And none of this has anything to do with anything... or does it? Chibnall's pulling a Moffat again and I'll have to wait until the next episode to find out what any of it means. I'll also have to wait until the next episode for much of anything to happen, as the there's a lot of elements in play here and nothing's resolved by the end. Haunting of Villa Diodati had its own story, but this is more like an episode of an classic serial. Tomb of the Cybermen jumps to mind... but only because they found a tomb full of Cybermen here. (They found the floating Cyber heads from The Orville as well!) The Last Cybermen's a pretty decent villain even when he's not the last one, but man his stompy footstep sounds are loud. I couldn't take him seriously after a while because I was distracted by the stomping. More importantly, the episode didn't give him a pretty decent hero to go up against. Okay, the companions did alright on their own, even though their only contribution was to say "Come on, you might as well give it a try," every time a problem came up, but all the Doctor did was give them false hope and get a spaceship door open so that the other guy could hack the ship. That's got me very suspicious actually, as the Doctor isn't instantly brilliant at everything she tries, but she mentioned having a lot of practice hot-wiring warp ships and yet this human's apparently still better at it? Something's going on there, I don't buy it. The episode ends with most of the heroes trapped on a Cyber-carrier full of Cybermen, and the other half at a mysterious Boundary portal that leads to the possibility of salvation (and not actually to a painless and merciful death like I was worried about). Though for some reason it currently leads to the ruins of Gallifrey... and the Master's there too, somehow! So that's a bit of a mystery. Though for me the real mystery is: will Graham marry the woman and leave the Tardis crew to protect the last of humanity in a distant future? Or am I just reading too much into the fact that they actually had a conversation? I feel like at least one of the companions has to be saying goodbye next episode.
12-10	The Timeless Children	6
The Doctor learns that she's actually the most important person in Time Lord history and escapes captivity with a mindblast. Meanwhile, the other characters resolve the plot. I actually avoided being spoiled on The Timeless Children, so it came as a real shock to me when it turned out to be the first five hour episode of Doctor Who. Every time the characters were left in peril I expected "TO BE CONTINUED" to flash up and the credits to start, but somehow the episode kept on going until everything was resolved. Well, aside from the traditional "What? What?! What?!" cliffhanger which has made a comeback after a long absence. I was also very surprised that the companions didn't leave at the end of the story, as I figured that two seasons was it for them, especially as their stories are pretty much wrapped up now. It's like Amy and Rory all over again. But one thing that wasn't a surprise to me, was the reveal that the Doctor is the Timeless Child. Partly because she was the prime suspect, and partly because I have no faith in Chris Chibnall (though for a moment I allowed myself to hope that it was actually the Master). So the Doctor isn't Gallifreyan, or even a Time Lord, she's from some other human-looking race... unless she came from the future and it's a paradox. The important thing is that she's at least as old as Gallifreyan space travel, the Time Lords are a result of genetic engineering based on her DNA, she can apparently regenerate indefinitely, and she's been doing secret missions for the Time Lords that were wiped from her memory. This doesn't entirely contradict the series so far, as Brain of Morbius hinted at earlier regenerations (shown in a clip in this story), The Two Doctors showed that the Second Doctor and Jamie were doing missions for the Time Lords before his regeneration into Three, and the Seventh Doctor was always hinting at things. Plus the Doctor's always had hundreds of years of history we've known nothing about. But making the Doctor special like this, making it so Hartnell wasn't the first incarnation (or even the first Doctor), I actually kind of hate it. We saw his growth into becoming a hero on screen, they recently built a Christmas special around it, so saying that he's only Doctor #114 put a bit of a downer on the whole thing really. A lot of the episode features the Doctor trapped in the Matrix being fed her secret backstory, and not in cartoon form like Can You Hear Me? this time. In fact it's not even in 'Irish Superman' form, even though that story in part one was apparently an edited version of the Doctor's history (edited to swap the cliff incident to after they'd joined the police and basically change everything so it's only vaguely relevant). Though they still went a bit mythic with her origin story, as it begins with the very first Gallifreyan astronaut exploring the galaxy and finding a baby. We had to send like 40 of our astronauts up there before we even found a rock! The story is ultimately about the Doctor dealing with this terrible revelation and coming to terms with it, and I feel like the viewer's supposed to come to terms with it along with her. We're suppose to realise that it's not actually so bad, and it doesn't really change anything about who the Doctor is now. In fact, it was a massive retcon of 57 years of continuity with absolutely no purpose! It brought back the mystery to the Doctor while simultaneously stating that it's irrelevant. Though I suppose it's really there to set up an arc about The Division next season. I'm just glad she got her old Tardis back at the end, I was getting worried that the series didn't even care about that anymore. That's what happens when you do a 'nothing you know is as it seems' twist: it means nothing you know is sacred anymore either. Great, now I've written so much about the twist I've no space left to talk about the episode. Uh, the Master was great this time, I liked the companions solving their own problems, the Master casually ending the crisis by himself with the cunning plan of 'having a gun' was hilarious, and the Time Lord Cybermen were... a thing. But the best part was Ko Sharmus, the old soldier who likes blowing stuff up (and was revealed to have sent the Cyberium back in time in the first place). The guy had so much gravitas that it was like he'd been put in the wrong series by mistake. Though I should write a little about what the Doctor did in this story: nothing. And where the hell was Captain Jack?

CONCLUSION

---

It's been a long while since I finished a season of Doctor Who and came away thinking 'yeah, that was great, I really enjoyed that' and series 12 has not broken that streak. Chris Chibnall's era has been more consistently 'alright' than the Steven Moffat era, which would swing wildly between genius and mind-blowing stupidity (often within the same episode), but I need more from this show than I've been getting lately.

There has been a noticeable shift in tone between Chibnall's first and second seasons however. Series 11 was a big change for the show, dropping a lot of the complicated mythology and going back to average people dealing with their own mundane problems alongside the weirdness the Doctor drags them into. I thought the scenes of Graham coping with grief and Ryan dealing with his dad walking out on him dragged on a bit, but they played to Chibnall's strengths as a writer and made the characters feel more real and fleshed out (more than poor Yaz anyway). In series 12 those plots have been resolved, and been replaced with... nothing. Now Graham and Ryan get about as much to do as Yaz, making all three of them feel a bit redundant. Though the mythology is back, and it's back so strong it's like the last season never happened.

Another problem I had with series 11 was that the Doctor was a bit ineffectual as a hero and her continual cheerfulness made her seem a little one note. Unfortunately she's not any more effective this season, no matter how special we're told she is. We've got a Doctor who can't back up her big speeches, at all, and even had to be bailed out of her own two-part finale. In fact I don't remember ever hearing her theme this season, because she's not doing enough to earn it anymore. She's certainly a lot more frustrated and miserable though, as most people are when their planet is left in ruins and all their people are killed. I wish I could say this made her more interesting to watch, but I mostly just wanted her to stop being mean to the others. Plus undoing the triumphant ending of the 50th anniversary special by destroying Gallifrey is a bit of a dick move, especially as it seems more likely now that it's going to stick. I was expecting it to be undone by the season finale, but nope.

Jo Martin's short turn as the Doctor had me wondering if Jodie Whittaker really is the problem with the show right now, as she dominated the scenes they shared. But then I realised that Doctor Ruth got to be smart and solve problems in those scenes, while the Doctor Thirteen was just there to moan, so Whittaker wasn't really given a chance. The show's production values are great, the acting is solid, and the music's definitely not letting it down, it's the writing that's the problem. Just like it was the problem with Chibnall's first season.

Though overall I have to say I preferred series 11. This season has been a lot more like typical Doctor Who, but in the process it's lost that tone that made The Woman Who Fell to Earth and The Ghost Monument feel like such a breath of fresh air. Plus it's pretty firmly earthbound for the first 80% of its stories, its historicals don't come close to matching Rosa or Demons of the Punjab, and its issue-based stories like Orphan 55 and Praxeus were just depressing. The season hinted at interesting things down the road (like Captain Jack and Doctor Ruth being a big part of its finale) but in the end it only delivered on the worst of its promises.


Best character in season 12:

The Doctor: I nearly gave this to Graham, but really no one stood out to me this season as much as the Doctor herself. She didn't get a whole lot to do in her two appearances, but from the moment she said "Hello, I'm the Doctor," I believed her and wanted to see three seasons of her adventures followed by a multi-Doctor special. Then again I thought the same thing about Jodie Whittaker's Doctor once.

My top three series 12 episodes:

---

1. Fugitive of the Judoon (7)
2. The Timeless Child (6)
3. Ascension of the Cybermen (6)

The fact that I like the 'everything you know is a lie' episodes better than the rest despite my hatred of the twist has to say something about how much this season didn't click with me.


Bottom three series 12 episodes:

---

1. Orphan 55 (5)
2. Can You Hear Me? (5)
3. Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror (6)

I know Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror wasn't bad, but something had to be in the bottom three and that scorpion queen means it definitely qualifies. Spyfall, Part 2 has the aliens that want to turn humanity into hard drives, so it also qualifies, but it also has the brilliant lamination montage so I can't be too harsh to it.


Next time on Doctor Who:

---

What do I want from series 13? A new showrunner.

---

NEXT TIME

Doctor Who may eventually return to the site, it may not, I don't know. But next week you're getting something even better, it's Babylon 5's Grey 17 is Missing!

What did you think about Doctor Who's 12th series? Better than last season? A huge disappointment compared to the Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat eras? I'm curious!