Season 1 (Series 14); Episode 3 --- "Boom" by Steven Moffat

I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited for this one. Steven Moffat writing under RTD, up to this point, has been a four out of four streak of writing the series' fan favourite episode: The Empty Child is a haunting masterpiece, The Girl in the Fireplace is a beautifully sombre idea box, Blink is, well, it's Blink and Silence in the Library is the distillation of RTD era iconography. With a stellar premise under its belt, an in your face anti-war message and some great worldbuilding, I was prepared for this to be the best of the season and the best of RTD 2 so far. Unfortunately, I'd definitely call it the worst of the Stephen Moffat-RTD episodes, though I don't want to downplay what is still the best of Season One's first three episodes. And the good news is, Moffat's back to traumatising children, though this time not by showing what goes bump in the night but instead by giving ten year olds a 45 minute long heart attack.

Arriving onto a desolate battlefield, the Doctor finds himself stuck on a landmine with a clock ticking towards its explosion. With a planet at stake, the Doctor has to save a world without moving a muscle.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Firstly, this episode is the return to formula I wanted. And when I say formula, I don't mean in a generic sense, I mean in a sense of returning to the original tone and intent of the show. So far, this is the first episode that actually feels like RTD coming back to Who and reviving his era, and it was written by another show runner, which is incredibly ironic. The style, the setting, the direction, the characters all felt straight out of a 2008 episode, something I have been looking for in these stories since the season began. Another massive draw in is Ncuti, who is just f**king phenomenal in this one. He sells his performance so unbelievably well and ended up being my main reason for investment; the 15th Doctor is finally getting some decent characterisation. Moffat being Moffat, he's also injected a great anti-war message into Boom, whilst simultaneously taking digs at Christianity, which is always fun. The message isn't exactly subtle but trying to make an anti-war message subtle is like trying to make an episode of Doctor Who make sense, it's pretty much impossible. The faceless weapon manufacturer feels like this big, imposing force that shadows the whole episode and is frankly more intimidating than Maestro ever was. And, of course, there's that 45 minute heart attack I mentioned. This episode is tense, it keeps you on the edge of your seat for most of its runtime and earns it, especially in the first half with just the Doctor and Ruby. It's easily my favourite episode of Season One tonally but it does beg the question once again who this show is being made for anymore because it feels like a completely different demographic than the last two.

However, the episode is, unfortunately, far from perfect. My main gripe here is that it feels rushed. The fast pace certainly helps with tension but it doesn't help with cohesion. None of the side characters feel developed, there are a number of great moments that are conceptually rich but I am prevented from feeling anything because the characters haven't gotten anything about them I want to know more about or feel interested in, this episode unfortunately continuing this season's problem of not letting there be any quiet, contemplative moments that let the characters grow on you, which is why there's been no original, interesting side casts so far, all three of these episodes have characters that are undeveloped or non-existent. Something else that's rushed is the ending, which causes all that tension to very anti-climatically shuffle to a stop. The power of love saves the day, and unlike The Doctor Dances, it doesn't come with decent enough character work to justify it. It makes the insurmountable threat of Villengard feel incredibly small and every character just seemingly forgets that their loved ones are dead. And speaking of not reacting to death, outside of setting up the climax, why is Splice here? Beyond the wooden child acting, she is just not presented like a ten year old, all her lines are written in an incredibly matter of fact manner and she never really reacts to her father dying horribly because she's, uhh, Christian, I guess.

Boom is not the masterpiece I hoped it would be and feels like it really did need a couple of moments to develop itself more - an air of early draft lingers around it - but it was a welcome return to form and definitely the best out of the first three episodes of Season One.

8/10

Pros:

+ Tonally, feels like we're back in RTD 1 era Who and I couldn't be happier about that

+ Ruby and especially the Doctor are fantastic in this episode

+ Ncuti puts on the performance of a life time (I have never seen anybody more scared)

+ Terrifically written anti-war message

+ Ranging from its synopsis to concept, there are a ton of great ideas in this episode

+ Villengard, at least until the ending, is horrifyingly topical villain that truly feels detestable even without a face to put to the name

Cons:

- Feels incredibly rushed, almost like an early draft

- You don't have enough time to get attached to any of the side cast

- The ending was heavily anti-climactic and felt like it didn't match up with the rest of the episode's bleakness

- The kid's involvement in the episode felt minimal and only really existed to set up a climax that failed anyway

- Ruby has a weirdly small role here and is really just a surrogate so that the Doctor has somebody to say "war is bad!" to and then when besides her shows up, she's taken out of action for the rest of the runtime