This episode is an absolute blast! Great concept! Great character work!

The party experiences what can best be described as a “hiccup in time”. They’ve arrived at the end of an adventure they haven’t had yet. One where they end up as exhibitions in a space museum. They now get a chance to redo their adventure. It’s up to them to change their timeline, so that this exhibition future does not come to pass. But how do you change your timeline if you don’t know what you did before?

This type of story is hard to explain, but it is shown well on screen. The concept is clear. Prevent the future from happening. It’s kind of baffling to me that Doctor Who is already trying deep, complicated time travel shenanigans in its second TV season. This feels on par with something the 11th doctor would go through, for example.

Aside from the premise, this story is great fun. The setting is unique and our main cast is having all kinds of fun. The doctor is running around like giggly child and I’m almost giggling along with him.

It also contains something we don’t see with these characters all that often. This might even be the first: There’s a full blown argument within the group (except doctor). It’s kind of unique, and while it isn’t necessarily plot related, it makes them all feel so human. They just had a bad moment, but it’s all good. I could watch these people for days.

Other highlights of character are sprinkled through the story. The Doctor gets interrogated by a machine that can look into his mind, and it made me laugh out loud. That hasn’t happened before.

Vicki also gets some strong moments, by showing some knowledge that only someone from the future could know. She even has some hackers skills. I feel this is earned for her. She has always acted a little haughty towards the other for being “primitive”, and this shows she can back up what she says. She also gets to incite the revolution this time, and her hype for it all is really contagious. Makes me wanna protest something.

Apart from the argument, Barbara and Ian get less stuff to do, and I’m starting to see a pattern. Maybe we’re winding down on them a bit. I know we don’t have much time left. And I feel that there are still some developments (Ian still has that new sternness, like he’s a bit disillusioned with it all). But I don’t think we’re going to get much more new stuff from them. A shame, but that’s not purely on this episode.

Plotwise, the stuff on display is fine. All the non-party characters feel a little wimpy, but I feel like that’s intentional. The characters are very much the strongest force on this planet, which is good. If other forces were totally overpowering them, it would be hard to change their own future. The Moroks are speed bumps in this challenge, but they serve their purpose. The only problem I see is that the bump section can feel a little long.

Other than that, I really can’t find many flaws with this story. It’s a story that pits our characters against time itself, and does so quite well. Character moments are there in spades and it all just works great. Even the next time teaser is cool! Maybe it could be a bit shorter, but honestly, I wasn’t ready to leave yet anyway.