This is my favorite S11 story, even if I think Demons Of The Punjab is the best piece of TV drama they made that year, and Witchfinders and Rosa are absolutely top notch, there is something so purely, perfectly Doctor Who about this mad blend of styles and emotions and big ideas. We are dealing with a sentient pocket universe made of energy fundamentally incompatible with ours to a destructive degree, it is lonely and seeks to gain either access to our universe or some company for its own solitary existence, and it tries to tempt people through offering them a convincing simulacrum of their lost loves (Graham and Grace break my heart here). Between our world and that one, an Anti-Zone grows as a natural barrier between incompatible energies, with flesh moths and The Actor Kevin Eldon scavenging for some kind of existence in that nothing place. And we start in Norway so we can get a little Scandy noir vibe going. There are two things that ping me here, one is why Ryan is quite so harsh about Hanna’s dad leaving (I understand character-wise what they are going for, but it feels better suited to a Ryan earlier in the series, he feels like he’s grown more by this point and wouldn’t be quite so blunt), and the other is how Erik initially found the portal, or why the Solitract picked specifically him, specifically that mirror. But not everything has to be answered, some things are better left vibey. I couldn’t love the concept of a toxic universe that wants to be friends more, and I can’t think of much that is more totally Doctor Who than that universe choosing to appear as a frog on a chair.I love this one. 4.25/5