I adore the life of Nikola Tesla, and I adore what he did for humanity. Had I known nothing of Tesla prior to watching, I'd probably have rated the episode higher. But this interpretation of Tesla is quite surface-level, and pales in comparison to The Current War movie. For those interested in Tesla, I highly recommend The Current War movie over this episode. This episode should've remained a true historical, and simply didn't need an alien threat. The parallels between Tesla and The Doctor could have been so much better and explored much further. I'm pretty sure Tesla didn't have an American accent (again, look at the Current War movie) as he spent the majority of his childhood and some of his adult life in Serbia.

The Doctor implying that Tesla should've been a billionaire and shouldn't have torn apart the patents is also a failure to understand Tesla as a person.

Similarly, the story should've been more pessimistic in it's approach to Tesla's life and work, because the final thing the Doctor says, about how Tesla ultimately fails and becomes homeless seems very blunt and sudden compared to the episode's otherwise optimistic portrayal of Tesla's life and accomplishments.

I did enjoy the actor of Tesla, and his portrayal, but this was distinctly not Tesla. Tesla was extremely introverted, had OCD, and probably didn't carry himself as well as the actor in this episode did, around other people. Again, look at the interpretation in The Current War.

There was also a surprising and disappointing lack of pigeons. Similarly, there was a lack of Tesla's love for pigeons.

If I ever were to become showrunner, I'd again create a story of Tesla (I love him so much), that would be more accurate to his real life, and more introspective towards his character. But that doesn't mean to say I'd say this episode never happened, or that I believe the actor did a poor portrayal. But Tesla, at least in my opinion, deserved a better episode and tribute than what this episode currently provides.

💔

do you guys think there was crazy discourse with the balkan doctor who fandom because they casted a croatian guy as nikola tesla. i really need to do some investigating on this because that was actually the most controversial thing ive ever seen this show do ever

I really enjoyed this one, might be my favorite historical so far. The actor playing Tesla was great, and cool seeing Rani playing the alien queen.

The scorpion aliens were a great design, similar to the spiders in runaway bride, but IMO these were superior.

Best of the season so far but in part because it feels like a series 11 episode. The fam have nothing to do, Tesla is interesting when playing off Jodie. Edison is obnoxious but not for the right reasons. The Skithra are so basic they forgot that they already did the Racnoss. There’s nothing wrong in this episode that isn’t also recurring throughout the era.

Well that was a great episode! Some lovely scenes between 13 and Tesla, a great new alien menace and Jodie Whittaker delivers another strong performance. All the Thomas Edison hating was weird though. He did invent the light bulb.