Prerequisites: The Robot Revolution, for context for Belinda.

The Interstellar Song Contest is fairly mediocre, but it isn't unwatchable by any means. The premise itself is actually pretty fun, and something the franchise has actually attempted before (on audio format). There are a few things I really liked here. The setting was fun, and I always appreciate it when a Who episode dives into the Doctor's flaws as a character. Done properly, it can make them seem much more fleshed-out, and even build future character arcs. Here, I think the setup was mostly fine, and almost killing three trillion innocents is certainly enough to draw the Doctor's ire. However, I don't think that this episode fully confronts the Doctor with his actions. He certainly has dialogue where he talks about how he "scared himself", but it was barely a moment given to what should honestly be a fair chunk of the episode. Think back to Series 3, where so much of the Family of Blood two-parter is about how the Doctor knows what he's capable of, and desires to avoid it sometimes. Here, there's none of that, and it's disappointing. Add in some pretty iffy political allegories (especially with the actual Eurovision controversy and all), and this episode was never going to rise about 'eh'.