Doctor Who (2023) 2-02: Lux

Episode:

886

|

Serial:

314

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Amanda Brotchie

|

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!

Doctor Who (2023) 2-01: The Robot Revolution

Episode:

885

|

Serial:

313

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Peter Hoar

|

Air Date:

12-Apr-2025

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Doctor Who again. This time it's the first episode of the latest season: The Robot Revolution.

Hasn't classic Doctor Who used that title already? Hang on, no I must be thinking of The Robots of Death. Or maybe just Robot. I guess robots rebelled a lot back in the day. Speaking of ancient episodes, they brought the director of series 6's A Good Man Goes to War back for this one. Doctor Who directors typically direct a block of two episodes and sometimes another block next season, and then they're done. It's rare for a director to return years later like this. I think Graham Harper might hold the record with 21 years between 6th Doctor story Revelation of the Daleks and 10th Doctor story Rise of the Cybermen, but Peter Hoar is now in second place with 14 years. That's about the same amount of time that showrunner Russell T Davies disappeared for!

I wish I could say that the second coming of RTD has been my kind of thing, but so far it's been hit and miss, and stories like The Church on Ruby Road and Joy to the World have me feeling like it's not a series for me anymore. Starting season 1 with Space Babies should've been a clue that they were showing me the door and inviting the next group of fans in.

Just please let this be better than Space Babies, please let this be better than Space Babies...

There will be SPOILERS below and probably some earlier episodes as well if my thoughts go in that direction.