Doctor Who (2023) 2-02: Lux

Episode:

886

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Serial:

314

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Writer:

Russell T Davies

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Director:

Amanda Brotchie

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Air Date:

19-Apr-2025

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching the second episode of the second season of Russell T Davies' second lap of Doctor Who, and it's written by the man himself. Here's some trivia for you: Lux has the shortest title in Doctor Who's long history... almost. 42 has it beat. But second shortest is still impressive.

We've got a new director on this one, Amanda Brotchie. So that's some additional trivia. I don't know anything about them to be honest, I don't really know anything about this episode yet either. Well, except for one thing that I won't spoil here.

But it does have me worried that this is going to be this season's The Devil Chord. The one where the show just has fun at the expense of any shreds of reality it still has left. I just get that feeling that RTD has moved beyond stressing about plausibility. In fact he's even been cutting explanations out of the script as who cares about how the magic works in a fantasy show for kids? Turn you brain off, enjoy the ride, and under no circumstances try to analyse the episode scene by scene for the internet.

There will be SPOILERS below as I'm going to write the next bit after watching the episode!

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The episode begins with "LATEST ATOM BOMB TEST!" across a cinema screen, which is often a bad omen. A nuclear explosion illuminates the Earth with the glare of a hundred suns, apparently. Sounds cool if you're into illumination. The folks in the cinema seem pretty interested, as they munch on their popcorn.

The projectionist goes into the storeroom and gets the next reel ready, a cartoon made in 1935 called "Mr Ring-a-Ding Goes to Town". Already I am shocked by the lack of authenticity in this episode! Copyright years for these cartoons were generally written in Roman numerals, so it should've said "MCMXXXV".

Hey, it's Mr Ring-a-Ding and on the way to town he meets a very Betty Boop looking Sunshine Sally.

Stuff like this tends to send me into full nitpicking mode. Is this bouncy Cuphead style really the right kind of animation for 1935? Did they actually have colour cartoons by that point, and so on.

So I went and did the research, watching a whole bunch of cartoons from the '30s, and... yeah they pretty much nailed it. The art style, the way they're side-by-side on a road running horizontally across the screen, the way his dance is a repeating animation loop, all spot-on.

Though they've added a faint shadow around the characters to separate them from the background, and I'm not sure that was typically a result of the process. Especially as it gets bigger when it cuts to a close up.

They got Alan Cumming to provide Mr Ring-a-Ding's voice, even though he'd already played King James I in The Witchfinders, and it seems like they made the right choice as it's a fantastic performance. He sounds just like a little American cartoon guy and nothing like a British king.

Meanwhile the light from the full moon (egg) hits a spoon, gets reflected off a pin, and crosses the light from the projector. Hey, it's that '50s sci-fi poster again, the one Alan has on his wall in The Robot Revolution! Funny how it always shows up around the villain.

Back in the film, Mr Ring-a-Ding suddenly gets sinister, telling Sunshine Sally he doesn't like sunshine as he's more interested in moon(egg)light. Then he starts talking directly to the audience. They're all sitting there confused, like they're thinking "This was a better before it got all weird and meta".

Then one of them decides to vocalise his dislike and Mr Ring-a-Ding doesn't appreciate it.
 

The guy doesn't respond well to criticism. Which is fine because all he can hear at this point is screaming. I feel like running is probably the best thing to do when a giant cartoon creature pulls a Last Action Hero, but the best these folks manage is to duck and cover.

The camera loses interest though and goes over to stare at the light from the projector instead, which cuts to the light on the top of the TARDIS as the credits start. That's how you do a proper transition!

OPENING CREDITS

Hey, the Fifteenth Doctor finally gets to go under the console and take bits of the TARDIS apart. It's a Doctor Who tradition. This is a good episode for actors who like to play with the props as the projectionist got to set up the film in the old projector earlier.

The Doctor hasn't changed out of his Missbelindachandrakind outfit yet, so he is really focused on getting Belinda home to the 24th May. This thing he's building is a vortex indicator (or vindicator), and it apparently works like a fishing rod. They just land, get this thing to hook onto 2025, and then pull themselves in.

Belinda is supposed to be a reluctant traveller, but he doesn't have to try too hard to lure her out of the box after landing. He just says that they're in 1952.

1-02: The Devil's Chord

First though they have to get changed and oh no the scene's giving me flashbacks to The Devil Chord. We're in a time loop, history is repeating.

I gotta be honest, I'm not entirely keen on how the Fifteenth Doctor's gimmick is he loves changing his clothes for every adventure. I like it best when each Doctor has a distinctive style that looks slightly odd in any time period (without being stuck wearing a bizarre costume covered in question marks). When the Doctor dresses to blend in it often has the unfortunate side effect of making him blend in.

Plus it's harder for people to cosplay a character's iconic look if they don't have one.

At least he's changed his hair. I didn't want to say anything about that style he had in The Robot Revolution in case it was Ncuti's own choice or something, but it wasn't my favourite look. How do they get their hair done anyway?

Oh damn, I just noticed: he thinks bow ties are cool again.

They find themselves next to a cinema in Miami, Florida, with a diner on the opposite side of the street. I think I visited here in a GTA game once.

This was actually shot at Penarth Pier Pavillion in Wales, about 2 miles directly south of Torchwood's HQ. So fewer palm trees in reality. Also no diner, in reality there's a road there. And no buildings in the background, there's actually a beach there. Even the top of the cinema has been added with visual effects, though they've done a great job with it.

The marquee has one movie on it: Rock Hudson in The Harvest Bringer. If you're curious whether the film actually exists, it does not. Also according to his Wikipedia page he wasn't really headlining movies until a year or two later.

They're going to have to set up their vindicator in a few different episodes before they can hook onto the right date, but it's done its job here so they can just leave. Belinda's not interested in wandering off and looking for an adventure so there'd have to be something pretty damn close to keep her from going right back into the box.

Fortunately the TARDIS must have known this as it parked them right next to the spooky cinema, and the chains on the door and tributes left outside to missing people are big clues that there's a mystery inside. RTD's 2005 season of Doctor Who established that the Doctor is not Spock, but here he admits that he is Velma!

Though first they're going to risk a coffee and ask around in the diner, and I started worrying that it was going to be an actual risk.

I wasn't sure if the episode was going to involve the heroes encountering segregation, because the series has been a bit weird about that in the past. Like Rogue was set in a 1813 England where the Doctor could go to a high society party and fit right in. I was kind of hoping that it was just going to hint at it and then move on without spoiling Belinda's trip, because unlike Martha and Bill etc. she's not already on her guard. There are no clues yet to remind her that this isn't a great place and time for them to be.

Though the racism is presented in a different way than it is in the episode Rosa, as it's not the white people who are hostile to them, it's the rules. The heroes are clearly in hostile territory, but these particular people are willing to let things slide as long as no one's looking. In fact this guy running the diner seems entirely happy to serve coffee and chat with them and there isn't even inadvertent disrespect. None that I detected anyway.

When Belinda realises that there's segregation here she gets outraged and the Doctor quickly shuts her down, saying that's not what they're focusing on today. He gives her a bit of a non-answer for why a guy who spent six months fighting against fantasy robot overlords isn't ever going to tackle real life oppression, saying that sometimes he lets others topple the world while he goes out and shines. But 'We can't change history,' has always been a good enough reason for me.

Though he doesn't have an excuse for only dropping this on her after they'd both entered the diner!

Seeing the cinema out the window is a nice touch. This was filmed on location in a US-style diner 60 miles away in England, and there should be a roundabout out there. It seems fairly likely that all the actors are really from England too, because the American accents aren't quite convincing.

This is the mother of one of the people who went missing. She's been coming here for months as she just can't let her son go, but the appearance of a police box outside has given her new hope. The important new information we get here is that the police found nothing when they searched during daytime, but no one ever tried going in there at night. Well, except for the projectionist, who never leaves anymore.

The two of them go inside and find Mr Ring-a-Ding. Belinda assumes he's a hologram and she's not far off as he is made of light.

They're not getting many answers from him, as he keeps replying with "Don't make me laugh!" Which is actually a really annoying thing to repeat. In fact repeating anything is usually pretty annoying if it happens too much.

This effect is really well done though, especially with the camera moving and the characters walking around him. There's some beautiful cinematography in this episode.

Damn, they both got bow ties, this is going to be a proper battle.

Belinda asks what he's a cartoon of and if he's supposed to be a man and for one horrible moment I thought he was going to be a racist caricature. But I guess he's just a blue pig nose man thing. I suppose he's blue because he's moonlight while Sunshine Sally was yellow because sunlight.

The Doctor has been processing the information and realises that maybe there's a reason they shouldn't make him laugh. It turns out that his laugh is more of a A GIGGLE. He's one of the Pantheon!

The letters of the sign outside fall off to reveal... well, you can see it. The Doctor and Belinda can't though, so it's not much of a reveal to them.

But who is the harbinger? In The Devil's Chord it was Henry Arbinger, in The Legend of Ruby Sunday it was Harriet Arbinger. The sign can't be the harbinger, that's not how it's worked in the past. Oh no, is it Rock Hudson?

Mr Ring-a-Ding properly introduces himself as Lux Imperator, the god of light, but he sang a song about being called Mr Ring-a-Ding so I'm going to keep calling him that. Also that's his name in the end credits.

He has a whole bunch of scary things to say, including the fact that running from light isn't likely to work out for them.

But then his cartoon comes on and he's compelled to start dancing to it. A toon's biggest weakness is how they're compelled to fall into familiar routines.

That was some quick thinking by the projectionist. He did it so they could escape the cinema, but they're not going anywhere until this is solved.

The guy is called Reginald Pye, which is fitting as by my calculations this is the 314th story of live action Doctor Who, and the number pi is 3.14. No one else is going to bring you trivia this trivial.

Pye has been playing him movies every night to feed him, because he doesn't want to escape the cinema either. He lost his wife in a car accident and Mr Ring-a-Ding has been bringing her back as a projection. Man, cars are becoming one of the Doctor's most dangerous recurring villains, seeing as they already took out Rose's dad and Danny Pink.

I hope the poor actress didn't have to get painted green or something for this effect.

This reminds me a bit of how poor tormented Mr Magpie was forced to work for the TV entity the Wire in The Idiot's Lantern. She took on the image of someone from the screen as well. Though Mr Reg Pye isn't doing anything to help it harm anyone. Mr Ring-a-Ding has already done his damage.

People stuck in frames of film is a bit Idiot's Lantern as well.

Wait, no, I know what this is... it's Fear Her! The one with the little girl that was trapping people in her drawings somehow. Damn, the episode's really drawing from some infamous series 2 stories here! All this needs now is some Doctor Who fans like in Love & Monsters and they've completed the 'worst series 2 episode' hat trick!

Mr Ring-a-Ding keeps Pye in line by threatening to burn the footage of his wife. Film stock of this era is extremely flammable.

The Doctor tries to get more information out of him, seeing as he's apparently bound by rules to tell him how he can be defeated. He explains that you can't expect backstory out of someone so two-dimensional, but offers him the hint "What have I not done?"

Then he shows off his godlike power to warp reality by trapping them in a cartoon!

What animation style is this? Definitely not the same one as Mr Ring-a Ding. It looks like an 80s music video or something. Oh is it supposed to be Scooby Doo? Is that what that joke about Velma was setting up? Man, they're even doing cartoon voices.

The Doctor says he can't figure out what to do next with his two-dimensional brain, and I'm sure the episode's not disrespecting animation, but this tie between 'two-dimensional animation' and 'two-dimensional characterisation' is kind of bothering me a little. I feel like I should be speaking up in defence of cartoons. Some of them have lots of depth!

Plus they were doing mind-bending fourth-wall breaking animated weirdness more imaginative than this back in '50s. They were doing it back in the '30s in fact!

The characters admit their fears, which transforms them into the kind of bizarre over-detailed pictures you see on a cartoon's Blu-ray cover. This isn't an actual animation style, it would take too much work, though maybe that's the point.

They're not really showing their depth though, they're just worrying about things! If being scared was all it took to get an extra dimension then Scooby Doo himself would be a seven dimensional god by now.

Oh, there's something else weird about this scene: the Doctor admits that he's the last of the Time Lords. That was a big deal when the Ninth Doctor did it in The End of the Road, and when Ten did it in Gridlock, and so on. But this is the post therapy Doctor who admitted it right away to Ruby in Space Babies. It just feels weird that we're doing this again.

Oh, that's it? The animated bit is over then? All they do is admit their fears, pull the frame down, and it's done?

I appreciate that they're definitely escaping from film here instead of breaking the HD digital stream of a modern Doctor Who episode, it hasn't gone all She-Hulk. But it seems to me that if someone's going to break the arbitrary rules of a fantasy world to escape, there should be some creativity and imagination involved. And a giant paintbrush.

When Farscape did its animation episode there was a whole Wile E. Coyote sequence, among a bunch of other gags. It got into the spirit of what it was homaging.

I guess going from an 'escape the cartoon' sequence into a 'we're still inside the holodeck' bit was kind of unexpected. It's maybe spoiled a little by it not looking like a '50s movie at all, but I have no idea how they could've done that without immediately giving the game away.

The clever part about this is that the episode is firing the Chekhov's gun of the segregated diner and cinema. Focusing on the racism of '50s America early on in the episode doesn't serve a purpose in the story unless it becomes a complication later on. So even though it feels wrong for the mother to suddenly flip her opinion of the two of them (she held the Doctor's hand and everything), it's narratively plausible.

Fortunately it's just a trick and the Doctor was onto it from the start. The clue being that the cop's wearing an NYPD uniform in Miami. See, this is why it's so important to get the details right when you're making a TV show or movie. Someone's going to notice your mistakes and when they do it's going to take them right out of the story. Literally in this case.

Next the heroes try something new: pushing against the fourth wall.

This is where things get a bit messy, as so far they've been trapped inside an old film. But now it switches so that they're trapped inside a modern TV show, and they actually escape through a modern TV into the real world.

Man, even in an season where the heroes can't get back to modern Earth, RTD still couldn't resist giving us modern Earth in every episode so far.

And then there's the bit in the episode where the Doctor meets his fans. They claim they knew this was going to happen because it leaked online and I don't even know if that's true, but that's a level of meta I can't even wrap my head around. They knew the Doctor would climb out of their TV into their living room because of spoilers.

These are really hardcore fans though, the kind that dresses up to watch a new episode. The kind that has a Finetime slug poster framed on the wall. The kind that has all the Doctor Who Blu-rays on their shelves and nothing else from any other TV show!

They should give DC's Legends of Tomorrow a go, that's a time travel show with a bit of Doctor Who's irreverent energy. Or, the obvious suggestion, Rick and Morty. Also, it's a bit older, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a big influence on the revival series.

Here's what bothers me about the scene, more than all the other stuff that also bothers me: it's too accurate. These aren't fans of the Doctor, they're fans of the BBC show Doctor Who. They even refer to episodes by their title, which the Doctor accepts very easily. Though he's less happy that they like Blink way more than the one with the goblins or the one where he's standing on a landmine. Hang on, why didn't the guy with the scarf pick a Fourth Doctor story like Genesis of the Daleks or City of Death?

Other shows have done this sort of thing before, but they don't usually make it too literal. When Deep Space Nine did its episode set in the '50s about a guy writing Star Trek, it wasn't actually Star Trek. When Stargate SG-1 did an episode about a Stargate show, it was called Wormhole X-Treme. Though on the other hand Red Dwarf did do this exact thing 15 years earlier... in its lowest rated episode. And it did it better.

They should add all those series to their DVD shelf too, by the way. Also that one I mentioned earlier, Farscape.

Ah, so this is what you see on a TV whenever the main characters leave the episode. Hey they totally could've done an infinity mirror effect here, with the TV showing the episode we're watching.

This part of Mr Ring-a-Ding's trap solves itself, as the fake Doctor Who fans are so genre savvy that they already figured out for themselves that they're fake and they choose to help the Doctor out... after criticising the episode they're in a bit. They're a little sad that they won't exist anymore after he leaves, and that they're not even important enough to have last names, but they're grateful that for this moment they got to be friends hanging out together and watching their favourite show. Aww.

Hey guys, why not tell the Doctor about Mrs. Flood? She's been breaking the fourth wall all this time, you could totally tell him about that.

And he could tell them about The Expanse. Get some of that on your shelf mate. Six seasons of thrilling space opera, proper ending, it's good stuff. Keep physical media alive!

They finally break out of the movie by doing the same thing they've done every time: holding their hands up. This time though they're jamming the film in place so that it burns. Breaking the fourth wall isn't the way out, you have to destroy the media itself to escape. Note: this doesn't work in real life, we've destroyed plenty of Doctor Who episodes and the Doctor has never been released.

Fortunately they don't come back as giants. But Mr Ring-a-Ding spots the Doctor using a bit of bigeneration energy to heal his burned hand and realises he has light inside that can build a body!

Man, I hate it when a villain tries to steal the Doctor's regeneration energy. We need that energy to keep the series going! Though he really is shining now.

Mr Ring-a-Ding just gives them the answer to his riddle: the one thing he never does is go outside! Except for in cartoons, he goes outside all the time in those. He wants a real body so he can go outside in the real world and watch some nuclear explosions, soak in all that light.

Fortunately Belinda trusts the Doctor now and she listens to him when he tells her that... he knows what time it is. That's all she gets, but it's enough. They've been keeping this guy busy all night, so now it's dawn and it's time to do what they've been told about twice already: set fire to the film.

Damn man, is this what Sunshine Sally saw him as in the cartoon world? Also, does this count as one of the Doctor's regenerations, like the Metacrisis Doctor did?

Belinda tries to get matches from Pye, but it takes a visit from his dead wife to get him on board with the idea of blowing the place up.

He tells Belinda to run, sets fire to the film reels, and waits outside the door. I think he probably dies in the explosion, but who knows? Man, we really are back to classic RTD storytelling here as both episodes so far this season end with an explosion.

Also both episodes have their villain basically giving away how to defeat them, and they each get what they want at the end. In this case, it's a whole lot of sunlight shining through the hole in the wall. Oh, plus they both say "Behold!"

That scene earlier where the moonlight reflected off the spoon reminded me of the scene in Tooth and Claw where the Doctor killed the werewolf by giving it too much light. Now they've done the same thing to take down Mr Ring-a-Ding, and the Doctor even has the same line about how humans are "70% water but you can still drown." Though he's retconned the number to 60%, which is probably closer to accurate.

Mr Ring-a-Ding just keeps growing until he is everything and nothing. I'm not sure how this rates on the weirdness scale compared to a giant Cyberman mech stomping across London, but it's pretty weird.

He became absolutely godlike, light without end. Intangible and invincible.

Hey, I guess the film being set on fire saved everyone (well, except for Pye). The mother's faith is rewarded as she gets her son back. And I guess now people can start a new faith, worshipping the giant cartoon god in the sky.

I was thinking someone would thank the Doctor and Belinda, maybe give them a nod to show their gratitude, but nope. The Doctors ties the episode's segregation and sunlight threads together by telling Belinda the laws of the land mean the daylight doesn't suit them, and they head off into their box.

Wow, it's Mrs. Flood! Anyway...

There is something interesting about her appearance here, (aside from the fact that this is 1952 Miami and not present day London where she lives), and that's how she says the Doctor's run is ending on May 24th.

That's the same day as was saw on the calendar last episode, so it's old information. But it fits with all the #RIPDoctorWho stuff from the fans earlier. How meta is Doctor Who getting with the rumours of its own cancellation? Is RTD screwing with us all on a level we just didn't realise?

END CREDITS

I usually turn the episode off right away to avoid seeing even a frame of the trailer, so I didn't find out about this extra scene until later. The camera pans away from the end credits to reveal that the fans are still watching. They didn't vanish from existence! Also, they all got last names in the credits, so they're important after all.

And so this becomes the only episode in Doctor Who history to give itself a rating. It's a 7/10.


CONCLUSION

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I didn't like the episode all that much.

I've seen people making the argument that because Classic Who had stories like The Feast of Steven which wished a happy Christmas to everyone at home, The Mind Robber, which put the Doctor in a world of fiction, and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, which got meta about the series and its fans, it's totally okay for RTD to take Doctor Who in this direction. And that's a fair point... but it doesn't change the fact that I didn't like it when it happened here.

The trouble with the scene where the Doctor and Belinda leave the episode, is that it took me out of the episode. I mean, even more so than usual. Pantheon gods bending reality and folks like Mrs Flood breaking the fourth wall have been eroding my immersion over time, but this one took the ride apart while I was still riding on it. By the end this wasn't even a story to me, it was a subject to analyse. I genuinely didn't care about whether Pye sacrificed himself or not, or whether the 15 people escaped, that was just something to make a note of when it happened.

Okay, I admit, I do care about Belinda. Even though she could've made a lot more effort to defend her existence when she was in the "real world". Plus from her perspective she was back home in the present day in that scene, so that should've probably come up as well! My only problem with Belinda (and honestly I'm not that bothered either way), is that she's pretty much become a standard Modern Who companion after two stories when it seemed like there was going to be a bit more conflict between her and the Doctor.

I guess that's my problem with a lot of this episode actually: it doesn't live up to its promise. It falls short of its potential. Well okay, Mr Ring-a-Ding himself was really well executed, spot on in every department. If you're on the episode's wavelength then there's nothing about him that would spoil your experience. But then there's the rest of it...

I'm not against an animated episode if it's got a good explanation, this ain't my first cartoon rodeo, but once you open that door there's got to be something in there for us to see. Cartoons from the '30s are just one mad thing after another, a series of bizarre gags by animators eager to show off. Here though the Doctor and Belinda become more 3D after sharing their fears, then they mess around with the film, and that's all folks. Also can you imagine how crazy it would be as a fan to talk to the Doctor for real? All the lore questions you could ask him. All the things you could tell him. If you can imagine that, then you did a better job than this episode did.

The episode doesn't do as much with racism as it could've done either, but I feel like it did what it should've done. For years fans have wondered how the series would deal with a black Doctor visiting places like this, and now we have an answer: it doesn't make a big deal about it. By that I mean it doesn't take over the narrative. The episode doesn't ignore the inhumanity of segregation, nor does it let the heroes overcome it and get hugs from all the white people at the end, but it's never allowed to overshadow the Doctor's Scooby Doo adventure.

Though the most interesting part of the episode to me was the show's rumours of cancellation being woven into the story. The series is doing something here and I don't know what it is.

RATING

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I'm having trouble giving this a fair rating and that's because after a certain point I wasn't really watching a story anymore, I was observing scenes on a TV screen and making notes. I wasn't feeling it.

But it was extremely well made, it didn't bore me, and it didn't make me want to walk out of the room to listen to the rain for a bit, so I suppose it gets this by default:

4/10

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NEXT EPISODE

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, Doctor Who's Aliens of London two-parter concludes with World War III!

What did you think about Lux by the way? Has the latest season started strong or are you disappointed with how it's been going?