I have been so tempted to let 1000+ words flow from me in a review of this episode. But I'm not going to. Because doing so will get entirely into (hopefully) unintended messaging the episode holds upon inspection that is frankly gross, and should not be touched within an episode that is also trying to do a lighthearted campy adventure. That is entirely the fault of the episode by not treating the serious subject matter with the care and nuance that it deserves. But I choose to leave it at this, to not dig into the rot that appears if you extend the analogy of Palestine going on beyond the confines of the message about Eurovision's enabling of genocide. Because that message is an extremely potent one that has brought me to tears both times I've watched.

Whether or not the story of Kid is also supposed to be an analogy is a pit I do not want to dive into to see the ugliness at the bottom, but regardless, the episode's focus on the terrorism of the victims of genocide, rather than on the suffering of the genocide victims themselves is an extremely poor decision at this time in our history. And for the plot to treat the terrorists with so little nuance, with absolutely no sympathy or apologies from the doctor after being tortured by him. Forgiveness and compassion has always been who the doctor is but there is none of it.

I choose to believe that any parallel between that messaging and our real world was an unintentional, misguided decision. And I choose to enjoy this episode for all the otherwise wonderful emotional beats and side characters it has going for it and it's notionally pro-Palestine message. Cora's song was genuinely a gorgeous piece that I'm honestly surprised got past any Zionist censors at the BBC or Disney. This is an episode I could easily rate very highly or very lowly, and I choose to leave it in that limbo so as to not delve into rot.