The Ninth Doctor #19

'Back to Earth: Station to Station' (2022) from The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Series 2.

A really great entry to the 9DAs here. I love the setting of the train stations, the mystery of all of the ghostly characters trapped in the limbo, and the concept behind how they get there I like a lot as well. All of the characters have their own little moments going on that don't get delved that much into but I actually like how they're pretty fleeting, as it helps maintain the focus on Saffron and her predicament, and then The Doctor versus The Grimminy-Grew. A super easy villain to find overly silly and sing-songy and not really intimidating, but I just kinda loved the goofiness and how it contrasted the situation for all of the characters and had a good time. I even liked the name-off between the two, it had a nice Bilbo versus Gollum vibe that I dug.

The writing was good but the plot was bad if that makes sense? It suffers initially from the nursery rhyme villain which has to be one of my least favourite horror/ baddie cliches of modern years. Might be misremembering but did they do something similar in Fear Her? (Not far off of that in my rewatch pilgrimage).

I didn’t like Saffron as much as other posts seem to, though it was rewarding having someone in the companion-like role. Any new companion I’d want introduced with a stronger arc than this.

The resolution (whilst entertaining) basically boils down to 1) the Doctor remembers something from out of nowhere, outside of the story to save the day. 2) the Doctor says saving everyone’s life is impossible, then out of nowhere realises that it’s not.