Doctor Who (2023) 2-05: The Story & the Engine

Episode:

889

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Serial:

317

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Writer:

Inua Ellams

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Director:

Makalla McPherson

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Air Date:

10-May-2025

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about The Story & the Engine, the latest episode of Doctor Who.

It was put together by black writer Inua Ellams and black director Makalla McPherson, and I'm bringing this up because this may be the first time in Doctor Who history that the writer, director and Doctor have all been black. Though if you change 'Doctor' to 'one of the regular cast', then Rosa was first.

This is one of the episodes I've been most curious about this season. Partly because the middle three episodes were the best ones last time, partly because of all the new people involved. I think it's easier to get enthusiastic about seeing new names on an established TV series, as it's like a safety net. Whatever this is, it's going to be Doctor Who, and I typically like Doctor Who!

There's apparently a prequel story this time. Not a video like in the olden days, it's text on the website. But I generally skip the prequels unless everyone's yelling at me to stop what I'm doing and check them out right now (like with Day of the Doctor), so I have not seen it.

There will be SPOILERS past this point (and also SPIDERS) so if you haven't seen the episode yet you might want to go do that first (unless you don't like spiders).

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Okay I've gotta put another disclaimer up here. I know how frustrating it is to read a review or see a reaction by someone who isn't loving something that you really enjoyed, so I'll warn you now, this is going to be very negative. If that isn't what you're in the mood for right now, I totally get it.

The episode starts abruptly, getting straight into this guy's story, which is animated in the window behind him. Reminds me a bit of the animated sequence in Can You Hear Me? Right away I've got to contradict what I just typing and say something positive: they did a great job here with the window, as it's not just reflected in the mirror on the right, but it also goes blurry when the focus changes.

This is a barbershop and he's telling a tale from his past while getting his hair trimmed. A story about the Doctor coming over to his village and putting out a fire. It feels a bit strange to me for the Doctor to get involved when there's no monster, but I suppose he does answer distress calls.

That was apparently a good story as the light on the wall turns green. Then the guy tells the others that the Doctor always comes to help and that sets off the alarm.

This is the fourth wall breaking era, so the window starts showing the opening title sequence.

They did a decent job with the effect, right up until the point where they get bored slowly zooming in and transition into the regular intro. I'm reminded of The Devil's Chord, which I thought did a pretty rubbish job of transitioning from the piano version of the theme to the regular one.

OPENING TITLES

Hey, you don't often see them standing next to the wall like that. It shows just how big those roundels are, and how massive the set is. This place is bloody huge.

The episode gets its mandatory serialisation out of the way quickly, with Belinda saying she wants to go home and the Doctor using his vindicator. He's using it in Lagos, Nigeria this time because they've got good communications technology or something (which he's not going to use). Also he wants to go and hang out with his friends for a bit.

This seems a little out of character to me for the Doctor to have a place and a community where he feels like he can relax and be himself. The guy is at home in the universe and even his companions struggle to get him to stay for dinner, as he's got to be out doing his thing. Though I suppose he did just spend years chilling out as the Fourteenth Doctor... or maybe not. I still don't know how that works.

They can't go to present day Lagos, so the episode's set in 2019, which is one of the years that Doctor Who skipped. We only got one episode, Resolution, on January 1st, so this is new territory for the series!

The series hasn't been to Africa much either, and it's never been to Nigeria. Doctor Who doesn't travel the world enough.

For many years there had been a question hanging over the series: what would happen if the Doctor got a black companion, or even regenerated to become black himself. How could the show continue to jump around in history without the characters being impeded by racism?

I always thought this was a little strange, because even with my pitiful knowledge of history and the world in general, even I know that there are places in history that the show could go where this wouldn't have to be the focus. And as a bonus, they might even be places we haven't visited before. Events we haven't heard about a million times before!

Though that's all the footage of the actual place we're getting and we barely get to see this marketplace set either. I'm trying to see if I can spot writer Inua Ellams, I know he a cameo as a market seller, but he might show up later.

I think this scene's meant to show how comfortable and accepted the Doctor is here. Not a black person, just a person (who's actually an alien from Gallifrey). I've heard criticism about this being a little too close to the message 'go back to your own kind where you belong', but I get the impression it's generally been appreciated in the spirit it was intended. And that people really do appreciate it.

Before the season started they released an trailer showing the episode titles and an image to go along with each of them. The picture for this was of these missing posters, so I'm a bit surprised they're not a bigger deal in the episode. His friend from the barbershop has been reported missing, so he goes straight to the barbershop and finds him there. That's the end of the 'missing people' mystery.

It's not even a good way to put names to the character's faces as no one's going to remember any of them. But that's okay as I write notes as I'm watching. There's Tunde, Obioma, Rashid and Omo.

Though before the Doctor visits the barbershop we get to see this really fake looking set. I don't mean that it looks too obviously like a set, I mean the parts of that would've been physically constructed on a stage look like they've been painted or something. It's very strange.

The Doctor goes through the shop door and the TARDIS console room goes on alert, almost deafening poor Belinda, who stayed behind.

Anyway, all the missing people are here in the barbershop, like we saw in the teaser. The Doctor's friend Omo tells him that there's new management and he's been expecting him.

The sinister Barber explains that no one can leave and there's a weird morph effect which shows the guy who just had a haircut (Obioma) getting all his hair back. So I guess everyone's going to be wearing wigs in this episode.

The four of them are almost out of stories, but Rashid sits down to tell a tale of the musician Yo-Yo Ma (an American cellist that I had not heard of). He was travelling through Botswana collecting local music when he heard a shaman singing.

The window's a bit less animated than last time perhaps. Images fading into other images. I had to catch it on a transition so I could show the antelope and the landscape at the same time. But now we know it's definitely something they're all seeing.

Rashid spells out the moral of his story at the end: back in the day songs were a live thing that changed as the scenery changed, but since the Industrial Revolution people wanted things to be static and definite. A frozen moment of packaged time. (But it's all actually a long-winded way of explaining why appointments never work in Africa.)

We learn that the screen, the chair and the Barber's clippers are all connected, so you have to get your hair cut for the story to count. But they must tell stories and feed it, as it is always hungry. Right away this feels to me like a metaphor for writing a TV series. You have to keep the beast fed, have to keep putting down the track in front of the train, even as it becomes harder and harder to find new stories to tell. But Inua Ellams is a playwright, so maybe I'm way off.

Abby arrives at the barbershop and the TARDIS goes nuts again, like it did when the Doctor came in. It looks great though. It also looks bloody gigantic now that I've seen someone standing next to the circles, showing off how big they are.

Unfortunately the Doctor's not here to explain what this unusual warning means, so Belinda just has to suffer through it each time, absolutely clueless.

The barbershop captives all love Abby, the Barber's assistant, as she's the one that brings them food. Tunde even helps her put her clothes and jewellery on when she comes in. The fact that she's one of the people holding them captive doesn't seem to dampen their appreciation.

The Doctor recognises her from somewhere, but he doesn't know where. We learn that she and the Barber both used to work for her father, but now they're travelling somewhere. More mysteries.

Omo gives a bit of the backstory. The Barber offered to cut his hair in his own barbershop, but his clippers magically transformed the shop, and that's not a thing I generally like to happen in Doctor Who. It's getting a bit Devil's Chord in here. Omo tried to keep anyone else from coming in, but Tunde, Obioma and Rashid just liked the place too much and pushed inside. We get a little bit about who they are and why they wanted a haircut, but they're hardly characters in this episode.

The alarm goes off (lots of flashing red lights in this) and the Doctor volunteers to be the next storyteller. Personally I would've avoided stepping deeper into the villain's trap until I'd exhausted my other options, like 'talking to him' or 'trying the door', but to be fair that alarm really is annoying.

He gets zapped by the cape the moment it's put on, which is a bit of a red flag. In fact this may be the biggest reason that the Barber's scheme fails in the end (well that and the way their hair magically grows back afterwards). If there's no obvious downside to having a haircut and people naturally tell stories here, then there would've been no reason to keep anyone prisoner. Without any prisoners there's no reason for the Doctor to investigate, and that means no one to stop him.

The Doctor could've told any story in the history of Doctor Who, but he decides to tell a story of how Belinda got roped into looking after a patient after her shift had ended because she'd noticed her condition and brought it to the doctor's attention. I assumed this was going to be a companion-light story.

I also assumed that the window only showed stories as limited animation, but the Doctor's story comes through in HD video

Well that story was kind of dull, but it did have a message to it: Belinda's a really nice person. Also the patient lived in the end, which I should've expected really, seeing as it's the Doctor telling the story. He doesn't like sad endings.

And then Mrs Flood shows up in the Doctor's story! She's the god of cameos, she can do that.

Though I prefer her pulling a Susan Twist and just showing up randomly than her getting a pointless scene at the end of every episode.

Hang on, we learn later that there are storytelling gods, so is that who she's supposed to be? Is she Loki? Is this episode crucial set up for the finale?

Well the Doctor's got his hair back. Ncuti has more hair changes than any other Doctor. Except maybe Twelve.

The Doctor's story was clearly way better than all those other stories as they start speeding up. Omo talks to the Barber, making the case that the Doctor's stories alone could power the engine, so he doesn't need to keep the rest of them prisoner. Either way Abby's hyped, as the Barber can take the throne soon and rule fairly! So that's another clue what's going on.

Meanwhile Belinda actually gets the TARDIS to respond to her, and it shows her the source of the problem: Omo's barbershop! She doesn't say anything, but I get why she rushes out of the TARDIS into obvious danger. She's not an expert at dealing with sci-fi weirdness, but if the Doctor's there he could need her as backup.

I think this scene of Belinda making her way through the marketplace only works as a contrast to the Doctor's scene earlier. He was comfortable and accepted, while Belinda's a bit overwhelmed by the chaos and gets into trouble when she accidentally knocks something over.

Oh, plus it gives the episode an excuse to use its marketplace set again, and get some more value out of it. See, we're in Lagos! We're totally in Lagos in this episode. It's not just a barbershop set that could be anywhere.

The Doctor feels betrayed by Omo for trying to get the Barber to take him and let the others go back to their families. He thought he was safe here and now he's pissed off.

Ncuti's really bringing the drama to this moment, with tears forming in his eyes, and the music's there to back him up (maybe a bit too hard). But I never bought that this place was that important to the Doctor so I'm not feeling it. If it was Kate betraying him, that would be a gut punch, but this wasn't set up at all. We never got the story of how the Doctor was feeling isolated because of his new skin and how he found he needed a place like this, even though he never had before.

The Doctor unlocks the door and gets flushed out into the vacuum, barely grabbing onto the door frame. Okay, here's another bit of positivity: we get a first-person shot of what he sees out there and I love it when episodes do that.

But it turns out that the barbershop is on the back of a giant robot spider walking on a magic web in outer space. How the guy got a robot spider is never explained.

This isn't my first episode of Doctor Who, I know that even though sometimes things will seem a bit weird at first, if you hang in there they can make a surprising amount of sense. WWII London is being attacked by gas mask zombies: it's alien medical nanomachines. The Doctor and Donna find themselves inside a library inside a little girl's imagination: she's the computer looking at them through surveillance cameras. But this episode started with a magical pair of clippers and the weirdness is just escalating. It's not what I signed up for.

Also, Doctor Who has had a terrible history with spiders. A lot of people like Third Doctor story Planet of the Spiders, but it wasn't for me. Then there's Kill the Moon, one of 12's worst stories, Arachnids in the UK, one of 13's worst stories, and The Web Planet is my least favourite episode of all of television. Just stop making Doctor Who stories about spiders, it's not working!

And then Belinda sees Captain Poppy from Space Babies, looking a little older. It's not just the same kid, she's called Poppy in the credits.

This is apparently because things from other episodes have started leaking into this one. Doctor Who is actually falling apart.

We're finally getting a bit more exposition from the Barber, who explains that what we saw out there in space is the Nexus. He used to call it the World Wide Web, but then that name was taken by something nastier.

The episode's really weird with how it blends science and fantasy. The robot spider's walking on a mystical web, but the magic door is actually just a time-space compressor. The Barber and Abby are the only ones that can step out in to Lagos, because they have the remote control. The obvious question is: has anyone tried to overpower the Barber and steal the controls? But this remains unanswered.

Also he's not going to tell us where the spider is going yet.

Belinda comes in and the characters just stand there and watch as the door slams shut behind her.

But the Doctor's more energised now, telling Belinda that the Barber hides his true identity like a troll on the web. Okay, I'm starting to sense that the episode wants me to look at the web as a metaphor for the internet. I'm picking up the hints.

The Doctor claims the Barber has no power, which certainly seem to be the case considering that he's done absolutely nothing so far. So now it's Doctor vs Barber in a battle of close ups, with the Barber getting a fancy dolly zoom shot like in Jaws as he raises his weapon (the clippers). He doesn't use it though, he gets out a pair of scissors instead.

There's a fancy transition to artwork revealing him to be Anansi, trickster and god of stories! Which is actually a bit obvious considering that he's up near the top of the list of famous African mythological figures and has a bit of a spider theme going on.

But he's also Sága, the Norse goddess! Bastet the Egyptian lion goddess (fitting as the actor played the lion alien in The Woman Who Lived)! Dionysus the Greek god of theatre! And Loki... who was in one of the biggest movies of all time and has his own TV series, so not much need of a description there.

The Doctor just laughs at him and Belinda and Tunde join in before they even know what he's laughing about. It turns out that he's met all those gods, so he picked the wrong person to try that lie on. I have to give the episode points for anticipating that viewers were expecting Anansi and doing something different instead.

Wait, hang on, the Doctor's met those gods? And they weren't Pantheon gods or Kronos or Gods of Ragnarok or aliens or whatever, they were the literal mythological figures with all their legendary powers? This is a bit of a shift from name dropping actual people like Marylin Monroe or Houdini, this radically changes the entire universe of Doctor Who. And it's just casually dropped in the middle of the story like it's no big deal.

Oh plus the Doctor mentions that Anansi deliberately lost a bet in order to make him marry one of his daughters. That's important in a bit and gets him a glare from Abby when he says it.

The poor Barber is really deflated after being called out on his lie. But it does move things along to the next stage of exposition. The supporting cast all take a seat on the benches because this is going to take a while.

It seems like this is what people really like about the episode though: Ariyon Bakare's emotional performance and Ncuti Gatwa rising to match him. It doesn't matter so much if it's a little hard to figure out what he's talking about.

The Barber explains that he used to be human once. The storytelling gods hired him to spread their stories to humanity, because this increased their power. The episode is going MAXIMUM FANTASY.

He also built the Nexus, which I guess is still a metaphor for the internet? Well he made a model out of gods' blood and then they did the rest of the work, expanding it to become a giant outer space spider web. It connects concepts, cultures and ideas... somehow. We're not getting specifics here, no examples of ideas being connected.

It's nice that we get to see this clip of him making a web, it certainly illustrates what a web looks like. Wait a minute...

Doctor Who (2023) 1-04: 73 Yards

... this looks suspiciously like the fairy circle in 73 Yards. I wonder if that's a concept we're meant to be connecting.

Anyway, it's nice to get a visual interpretation to go along with the backstory, but the web is basically all the episode shows. The guy's talking about working with the gods and sharing stories, and we don't get to see what he actually did for them. Just some illustrations of scenes from earlier episodes.

The cinema from Lux (complete with TARDIS) and the rocket from The Robot Revolution.

The Barber explains how he collected stories:

"I started small. A pub lit by candles, a Catholic church confession box, a coal-powered theatre, an electric cinema, a space opera. Until I had the idea to power the vehicle with stories itself."

But I thought he was telling stories about those specific storytelling gods, to make people aware of their myths so that they'd be worshipped. How do we get from that to 'I watched Star Wars'? And how do we get from that to 'I made a spider that uses stories as fuel'?

He worked for centuries but no one ever knew about him. He's nameless, uncredited, and when he made the Nexus work so well it worked without him they just fired him. Hang on, we thought Robot Revolution was the story about the AI generator, but is it actually this one?

It's at this point that the Doctor remembers where he saw Abby before, though he really shouldn't, because he met her as...

...the Fugitive Doctor! The incarnation that the Doctor has no memory of being.

Also I think the series keeps forgetting that the Disney+ era is supposed to be a jumping on point. None of the new fans have a clue who this is! It's nice to see her though, and to get a bit of a tease that we may get to see her story someday. I want to see her story right now! Though actually, if it involves her meeting Anansi and making a bet then maybe not. That kind of dampens my enthusiasm to be honest.

It turns out that Abby is Abena, the daughter of Anansi that the Doctor was supposed to marry after the bet. A bet they tried to lose. Abena thought the Doctor would help free her from Anansi, but instead they left, and she's all kinds of pissed off over that. The Doctor (as the Fugitive Doctor) says she couldn't take her as she was a fugitive at the time... and that's all we get of Jo Martin. We didn't even get to see an animation.

Abby says that they're going to the heart of the Nexus to install the shop and make him the new storyteller god, whatever that means. The Doctor points out that's just another lie, the Barber just wants vengeance. He just wants to sever the gods from the story web, killing them. But they're not like the Pantheon gods, so that would actually be a bad thing.

In fact the Doctor says that this would remove stories from the world, preventing humans from passing on traditions (visiting Time Lords could still tell stories just fine, it's only humans affected). Man, this is Devil's Chord all over again, with stories being taken out of the world instead of music.

Though hang on, why is the Doctor the one making the case for humanity needing story gods? The guy's a scientist who doesn't even understand the rules of fantasy. He said that in The Giggle. If anything he should be showing why they're not needed.

Belinda tries to talk sense into Abena, saying "Hurt people hurt people" and that the difference between good and evil is what you do with that hurt. Which is good, I'm glad Belinda's getting something to do in this episode.

The other characters in the shop finally get something to do as well, as Obioma and Rashid drag the Doctor to the chair with pleasure to force another story out of him! It's like Midnight all over again, everyone turning on him. Having a companion with him is no help as Omo's holding her back. And Tunde's not being much use.

Finally Abena decides to do something, inspired by Belinda. She styles the Doctor's hair but she's the one who tells the story. It's a story about how slaves hid messages in their hair disguised in the braids.

This is what Doctor Who should be doing, in my opinion, using its trips to the past to teach us something about history, but these days I can't tell when it's being truthful or not. I have to look it up afterwards.

And it turns out that this story is... true! Pretty much.

Abby makes the Doctor's hair into a map, just like in the story she told, and he and Belinda head off into the back room. Honestly, I'm not mad that black hair and black history turns out to play an important role in saving the day in the episode set in a black barbershop. That's also doing it right.

Well at least this giant maze explains where all the extra air came from when it was rushing out with enough force to push the Doctor out through the door.

This bit doesn't really work for me though. The solution (map) comes before the problem (maze), but the Doctor immediately takes action like this was the clue he was waiting for. Like he'd been standing useless in the shop the whole time because he knew he couldn't go into the back until he'd had his hair styled.

The maze itself isn't an obstacle, so the Doctor just walks through it and we're done here.

Then they find the Story Engine, surrounded by artefacts and Hemingway books and also televisions. The episode's the first big episode set in Africa, but it's clearly about culture, not just African culture.

The Doctor instructs Belinda to start ripping out cables but the Barber catches up and tells them that it didn't do anything. I don't mind that this hasn't devolved into a fist fight, but it does seem a bit strange that there's been nothing to hint that they can't prevent the terrible outcome with a little physical force. In fact they said the Barber doesn't have power.

The Barber is going to cut the gods off and seeing as I'm looking at a tree with a glowing heart, I'm going to assume you can get more from this story if you don't take it 100% literally. So is he trying to starve the streaming services by cutting off their content, even though it'll starve humanity of episodes too?

The Doctor decides to tell the Barber another story, even though Belinda doesn't think they should give his engine more power. She's doing a really good job of keeping up with all of this for a regular human who joined in halfway through.

He mentions the Hemingway books and talks how he once came up with a story using just six words. There's a bit more history for you, as the story "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" has been attributed to Hemingway.

But this time it's actually not true! According to the internet, Hemingway did not write that story.

The Doctor shares his own six word story: "I'm born. I die. I am born!" He missed out the "I split into two," part, and it's a bit hard to pick up exactly what he's saying on a first watch with all the pauses, but the story is told. And he didn't even need to have a haircut for it, somehow, as the engine is now connected to him.

Season one gave us the Legend of Ruby Sunday, now we're overcharging the engine with the Legend of The Doctor. It's lucky the barbershop has so many TVs lying around, so all the Doctors get a turn (not Seven). The Sixth Doctor looks so much better in black and white. And the Ninth Doctor says "Just this once..." so if you complete that sentence there's a bit of foreshadowing for you.

Showing all the Doctors is a trick you can only really do on special occasions, or it's not special anymore. Unfortunately they did it in episode 6 last season and we got clips of Tom Baker in the finale, so this feels a little too soon to me. But hey, if the scene works for you then it works.

I'm always happy to see the classic series getting recognition in the newer episodes. In fact, there's no separation between the classic Doctors and modern Doctors here, as they're shown out of order on old black and white TVs.

Though the First Doctor gets the big screen colour treatment. Perhaps because of the recent The Daleks colourisation. I like this, as it makes it feel like we're seeing the Doctor's stories and not his episodes. It's not people watching literal Doctor Who like in Lux.

It's setting the Doctor up as a bit of a Loki himself. Not a god of lies, that was Conrad in the last episode, but a god of stories. Stories powerful enough to bring audiences to Disney+... or HBO Max I guess, seeing as Disney didn't pay to have the older seasons in the library.

But they're using footage from a science fiction series to save the mystical storytelling gods, and the contradiction there is breaking my head. RTD brought fantasy into the show in the Fifteenth Doctor era, so none of these Doctors would've had a story like this.

Belinda gives us the technical line, telling the Barber that the engine can't process the power and it'll explode, so it's cool that she somehow knows that. Hospital story aside, this really isn't a 'Doctor and Belinda' episode, it's 'Fifteen and Companion'.

The Doctor convinces the Barber to give up and let everyone out, seeing as his plans are doomed, but convincing him to come with them before the spider explodes is a bit of a harder ask. I'm glad he's trying though! This is the proper Doctor right here, showing compassion to his enemy and trying to get him to come with him.

The episode leaves us wondering how this will go, or even if the Doctor will make it out. You never know, it could be a cliffhanger ending. I haven't got the stats in front of me, but I think the Doctor fails at convincing the antagonist to come with him more often than he succeeds. Davros was happier getting blown up to prove a point, the Master would've rather died, the Celestial Toymaker was having too much fun... but the Barber's a more sympathetic villain and he does come with him!

Outside Omo offers the Barber forgiveness, a name and the barbershop, which somehow still exists after blowing up. Ultra happy ending! And the episode ends with Belinda asking the Doctor to tell her a story about Omo.


CONCLUSION

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This episode lost me the moment they came up with the concept. I was never going to enjoy a Doctor Who episode about a haircut-powered mechanical spider walking through outer space on a mission to kill the gods and remove storytelling from the world.

Science fiction and fantasy are similar in that they're often used for allegory. Either can capture an audience with their imagination and spectacle, while also delivering an encoded message about the real world. The Doctor's mundane tale of Belinda in the hospital could've been about a fairy healer draining her magic to help people, or a medical droid running low on batteries, but it's the same story. So I think this episode could've worked just as well for people if they'd taken the gods out entirely. Taken out the Nexus. There was no need to bolt this blatant fantasy onto the science fiction-leaning Doctor Who universe.

It's not that I hate fantasy or the idea of mixing it with sci-fi. Granted Neil Gaiman-style urban fantasy has never been my thing, I've never been interested in American Gods or Sandman, but I've spent hours in my fantasy RPG worlds. I love being immersed in imaginary universes with their own lore and reality, when they're consistent about it.

Doctor Who is, especially in the modern era, is about making the audience feel at least as much as it's about making the audience think and bringing mythology into the mix doesn't feel good to me. It tastes like they've poured gravy on my corn flakes, or put fish fingers in my custard, I'm just not into it. No matter what the story is actually about.

This one's an episode that kind of demands analysis, it's basically got "This means something" written into its hair, and I'm not sure it works at all unless you're picking up the metaphors. I'm not claiming I know for sure what it's about, but I did pick up that it's about a frustrated writer who never got credit and has been made redundant due to the internet and automation. He tried to destroy the system in his anger, nearly destroying himself, but instead gets another job that puts him at the heart of a community.

That said, I've seen people say they didn't know what was happening and they loved it anyway. It's got a bit of a Ghost Light feel to it in that way. Incidentally Ghost Light was episode five of Classic Who's final season before being cancelled, so maybe we shouldn't hope for too many parallels there. I'd say it reminded me of Rings of Ahkaten too, except I hated that one and can't actually remember what it's about, so I'll go with Midnight instead. Both episodes are kind of like stage plays with all the players in a confined space. Except here you don't need to think about Tunde, Obioma or Rashid, as they were basically just in the audience for the show that Ariyon Bakare and Ncuti Gatwa was putting on. I got a bit thrown off at first by the way the characters were so inactive, with the Doctor barely testing his cage or confronting his captor, but I could tell that they were both energised by this script. I can imagine a clip from this episode showing up in a future 'show off all the previous Doctors' scene.

It's a real love it or hate it episode (with most people apparently leaning toward 'love it'), but getting rid of all the stuff I hated wouldn't necessarily get rid of the stuff people love. The episode properly takes advantage of having Ncuti in the role, it's all about black barbershops, black hair, black community, and none of that is a problem. Especially as it's written by someone who knows what he's writing about. I'm not blaming Inua Ellams at all for bringing fantasy into his episode as that's what RTD told him to do.

My only issue with how the Doctor is portrayed here is that they were Jodie Whittaker for years, transformed into Ncuti Gatwa, and now they've got this affinity for Nigeria out of nowhere. I feel like we missed the part where he felt like needed a safe space and grew to consider Omo a close friend. I dunno, maybe that's in the prequel story I didn't read, but they didn't connect the dots on screen.


RATING

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I was getting my hopes up for this one, especially when I saw all the happy thumbnails on YouTube before watching, but I ended up really disappointed. The only thing worse than hating an episode, is hating it and then finding out everyone else really enjoyed it. I feel like I'm being invited to get off the train so that everyone else can enjoy the series without me, but consider this a vote against the direction it's headed in.

3/10

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NEXT EPISODE

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's Father's Day. Not the actual Father's Day, that's in June, I'm talking about the 2005 Doctor Who story.

But if you want to talk about the The Story & the Engine, you can use the comment box below.