Juno Dawson promised a mix of Eurovision and Die Hard... and she wasn't lying.

Her scripting here balances a very fine line between acknowledging the joy and comfort that Eurovision brings to its audience (in particular its LGBTQ+ audience), and acknowledging its use as political whitewashing for totalitarian nations. It's along the same lines as a Pete McTighe story in how it tries to present both sides of the issue, except this doesn't hold back or directly point out one or the other as the 'bigger' evil. Cruelty is cruelty, whether it's for corporate gain or misplaced revenge, and the fact that it even pulled the Doctor himself into that spiral is both effective and genuinely scary. That Susan cameo does a lot to apply the groundwork for just how dark he goes here, and while I think it's brushed off a little too quickly, Ncuti absolutely nails it.

From the tension-building to the smaller character beats to the sheer scale of it all (that dome opening had me completely slack-jawed; even Voyage Of The Damned didn't threaten this big of a body count, and that's before the delta wave is introduced... nice Parting Of The Ways reference, by the way), this is really damn good.

And then the mid-credits scene happened.

Now, I unfortunately had the big reveal spoiled for me ahead of time (bloody Twitter trending topics, I swear I'll learn my lesson one of these days), but I was honestly kind of psyched about it. I drew up a little wish list of things I wanted to see return in Season Two, and sure enough, the Rani is on that list. I like her reveal here... but why, oh WHY, did it have to be another bigeneration?! I was willing to work with it in Fourteenth's case, as that was probably the only incarnation of the Doctor that it made any narrative sense for, but here? No dice. It's just irritating and puts a bad taste on the end of what is otherwise a pretty damn good episode. It also makes me a bit worried about the two-part finale, even though I'd been looking forward to it up to this point.