The Devil’s Chord

A nonsensical plot - RTD at his worst with his penchant for pomp and unreasonably high stakes - saved by lots of fun and some great acting, particularly but by no means only from Jinkx.

The first time I watched this episode I had got back from the pub, sat through Space Babies, put this on and stopped half way through, being a bit tired. I watched it through the next day, and I realised it wasn't that I was tired. Its just tedious.

Going to see the Beatles record their first album the Doctor and Ruby are shocked that the music isn't good, but neither is Cilla Blacks or in fact any.

Jinkx Monsoon plays the role of the Maestro, to be honest I've no idea who they are but I found them a little over the top, and I can say the same for Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor in this.

Long time Who fans will know that the Beatles were susposed to make an appearence in the Chase but a clip of them was used instead, this seemed a great opportunity to put things right - only it doesn't do it. The Bealtes themselves barely feature and begs the question why bother?

There is some nice dialouge where the Doctor says he's living here right now just over there - a nice reference to an Unearthly Child. Annoucning he has fanmily and a granddaughter Ruby asks about her and the Doctor doesn't know, and by his attitude doesn't even care, "I dunno" is more or less his reply. What a charming man this Doctor is!

Though this is the second adventure we see of The Doctor and Ruby travelling together, Ruby mentions that the Doctor never hides, maybe there are more journerys we've not seen?

In finding out what happened to music the Doctor hoists a piano onto the roof, and again why? why not a busy street or market place?

This episode has all the right components, a super being who the Doctor needs all his abilitys to deafeat, The Beatles, a great setting - 60's London. But in seeing this again I'm just bored.

And then we come to the end, an awfull look to the camera by the Doctor, the wink and a big song and dance number. The Bealtes music is hard to use, but using one of the songs they famously covered would have been great but again no. An embarrising, unnecessary bit tacked onto the end.

Skip it.

If you don't like drag, you will not like this episode. Thank god I love drag and hate The Beatles.

I do actually enjoy The Devil's Chord as a fun Doctor Who adventure against an enjoyable one-off villain. If that was all there was to this episode, I would have rated it higher. Unfortunately, it is not.

Firstly, I am a Beatles fan, and the child of a Beatles fan. I remember getting a notification on my phone announcing that one of the new series' episodes was going to be about The Beatles, and excitedly sending it to my dad. I remember watching Russell T Davies talk about how there was a Beatles episode with a battle involving a piano. I remember all the marketing around the episode as 'The Beatles episode'. This is not a Beatles episode. The Beatles do appear in it, as background or minor characters. John and Paul do save the day, but even they are only in four scenes; the recording, the cafeteria, the piano battle (outside the room where the main action is going on), and the musical scene at the end. George and Ringo only appear in three of those, and get even fewer lines. As in, one each, compared to Paul's 10 and John's 5.

Secondly, this episode feels out of place. This is something I started feeling after Ruby says that she's from six months after we last saw the Doctor. This is a feeling which has also been compounded by Boom having Ruby visit her first planet (after over 6 months, and one adventure), and Rogue later having Ruby tell the Doctor 'It snowed when I was born, and we met space babies', with no mention of later adventures. Plus, having The One Who Waits almost be here on the second episode is less appropriate than on the episode before the final. I know that RTD has said that the episode order was not messed with, which, in my opinion, makes this worse.

Thirdly, we once again have other characters put importance on the identity of Ruby's birth mum. I don't like this. If Ruby's mum is supposed to believably be nobody, then Maestro (and Sutekh, as he gets a mention here) should not be finding her so important. Maestro's comments are part of the problem of Russell T Davies making us think Ruby's mum is a significant plot point, not the viewer emphasising with Ruby to make her significant.

Fourthly, as a musician, specifically as a violinist and someone who can read sheet music... AAAAH! There is no way that John and Paul would be able to read those floating notes. Firstly, because none of the Beatles could ever read sheet music, but secondly because there wasn't a floating stave, or a floating clef. Secondly, the chord that banishes Maestro is a C chord, supposedly in reference to the ending from A Day in a Life (an E chord, played by John, Paul, Ringo and George Martin). C chords are played earlier in the episode, too. Why is Maestro still here? They should have been banished already.

Maybe, after time has passed, and we're further from the 'Doctor Who is going to have a Beatles episode' marketing, I will change my rating of this episode and rank it slightly higher. The issue with this story and Rogue feeling like they're in each other's places and Ruby's birth mum being written as so important to the gods of the Whoniverse (side note: I do not like the whole Whoniverse title card things, but am not basing any reviews or ratings on their existence, as they are separate from the episode). And then there's the musical stuff, which is bound to be repeated (anyone else remember Five's perfect fifth?). But right now I'm still a kinda salty Beatles fan.

Since the episode was spotted being filmed, The Devil's Chord has become one of the fandom's most anticipated episodes. Many of the fan base had been anticipating a musical-based episode featuring Beatles songs, with the Doctor and Ruby travelling to 1963. This episode is certainly *not* the one that our fandom was so convinced that it would be, which is disappointing to an extent, but it doesn't mean that it is inherently bad.

 

Although Russell T Davies had recently confirmed that there were to be no Beatles songs in The Devil's Chord, I am surprised that the episode isn't a full-on musical. It's a shame, because the final scene with the Doctor and Ruby singing The Twist is incredible, and demonstrates the potential for a Doctor Who musical story. And whilst the Beatles songs are expensive to license, it would have been nice had they included the Beatles in the episode more, and used some of the songs that were actually covers. The Twist could have been Twist And Shout instead, for instance, and it would have felt more fitting as a Beatles celebrity historical.

 

What we do get, concerning the God of Music Maestro stealing music and turning London into a joyless dystopia, is brilliant fun, and definitely an improvement over Space Babies. I particularly like the way that it utilises Ruby's talents as a musician, and we get to see her assisting the Doctor by playing the piano. It's a good way of showing how Ruby can prove useful during the Doctor's travels.

 

The highlight here, however, is absolutely Jinx Monsoon. Jinx Monsoon is incredible as Maestro, and chewing up the scenery in the best possible way. She's delightfully over the top, but also feels incredibly menacing, and you get the sense of the power she holds as the God of Music. Especially as the Doctor is so afraid to face her. I really hope we get to see Jinx Monsoon return as Maestro, as she is easily one of the greatest original villains introduced since the 2005 revival. The fact that she is the Toymaker's daughter makes it seem like we're potentially destined for a future Toymaker/Maestro team-up.

 

Her role also lends itself well to a few brilliantly meta moments, like Maestro playing the Doctor Who theme on the piano, and Ncuti Gatwa's cheeky wink before The Twist. I hope the fourth-wall-breaking will be a constant staple of this new era, as some of my favourite moments from RTD2 so far have been when the fourth wall has been broken.

 

Overall, The Devil's Chord sits comfortably as a 7/10 for myself. Had the episode included some Beatles songs and been a full-scale musical, however, it would have been a 9/10. I definitely think it's time that Doctor Who did an episode firmly in the musical genre, especially now that Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor seems to be very much a song and dance Doctor.

Maybe it's just because I went so low with the last episode, but I really, really liked this one. It was fun!

The theme music being diegetic is a very nice touch, I love those sorts of things.

A wardrobe change is always fun, though I'm a little disappointed we don't get to actually see the wardrobe. It's also a little odd that Ruby should change when her outfit in the beginning of the episode already wouldn't have looked out of place in the 60's.

The line suddenly claiming it's June is extremely jarring for the second episode of the season, especially when it's implied that this is the first time Ruby asked to go to a specific place in time, and is likely yet another symptom of the shorter season, but, along with everything else in this episode making it feel more suited to later in the series, it's possible its place was moved after the episode was completed.

For an episode that was marketed all around the Beatles, they played a very small role. I had somewhat expected that, but it was still disappointing. The fact that only two of them had any spoken lines and I don't think we ever even see Ringo's face is very telling. That, combined with a plethora of factual errors about the Beatles - most notably that in real life none of them could read sheet music - makes one consider why they chose to make this episode all about the Beatles in the first place. They didn't even have a Beatles song. I've heard from people who are not very familiar with the Beatles that they didn't even realise the "bad" song wasn't a real Beatles song, and as someone who knows a lot about the Beatles without having heard all of their songs, I agree it sounds like a song they absolutely would have made (they've written worse, as you can hear in the Anthologies).

The piano scene was lovely, a beautiful song, and the reactions of the people who heard it really added to the atmosphere. I especially liked the old woman who then went to play her own piano - it's likely that, with music only going out in the 1920's, she remembers hearing good music in her younger years.

I *loved* Maestro. They're camp, they're over the top, they have fantastic fashion sense, and all in all they're just great fun. Playing the Master's theme to mess with the TARDIS was a nice touch.

I don't like the music notes flying around. That kind of effect always looks cheap and cheesy, and is never accurate to the actual notes being played.

The song at the end was a choice. Murray Gold has never been good at writing lyrics, and while that's fine for a background song like in The Rings of Akhaten, it's terrible when the song takes centre stage as it does in this episode. It also goes on for much too long.

Despite all the issues I have with this episode, it's just really fun!

This one is a perfect little romp but I did kinda role my eyes a little when the one who waits got mentioned again like we get it Russell… that one who waits yeah we know

FUCK YES. FUCK YES. THIS IS WHAT DOCTOR WHO SHOULD BE. WEIRD AND DRAMATIC ANC MUSICAL FUCK YEAGH

This episode is a step up from Space Babies, but I still think it's far from peak Doctor Who. It has a decent core concept which, unlike the last episode, I feel is well explored. However, it still feels a little bit messy. Still, it is good fun and enjoyable. The bit at the end is... interesting. It feels a little bit out of place and disconnected, but is entertaining in its own way.

One very nitpicky thing that I noticed and feeled compelled to point out is that, when a character way playing a violin, it was very obvious to me, as someone who plays violin, that it was not being played properly, and this made me struggle to enjoy this scene. That's possibly just me, though.

✅77% = Good! = Highly recommended!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

THE ONE WHERE THE BEATLES SING ABOUT THEIR DOG!

This cold open masterfully draws you in and establishes the eerie premise of the episode. Jinkx Monsoon, the new instant-classic villain Maestro, immediately steals the show, and Murray Gold delivers one of the most intense and memorable soundtracks of any Doctor Who episode, effectively using music and sound as a narrative tool. I appreciate how well the opening establishes Maestro as a true force of evil, as well as how they take us to the title sequence by playing the theme tune on the piano.

Once again, Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson exude infectious buddy energy, and Gatwa feels a lot like David Tennant in his energetic outings with Catherine Tate. Jinkx Monsoon steals the show with her playfully scary take on Maestro, a god of music and a powerful force invading the Earth in the wake of the Toymaker. At one point, they sound and feel like Ursula from The Little Mermaid!

The four Beatles actors don’t look a lot like their real-life counterparts and don't feel very real either, but I guess that’s the point. The episode barely features the Beatles, and there's no compelling reason to set it in 1963 or feature them at all, given how it's hardly even a historical episode. The episode has a narrow scope, primarily concentrating on the Doctor, Ruby, and Maestro.

The BBC has always been great with historical episodes, and The Devil’s Chord is no exception. The 1963 setting comes alive through great production design and music. The costumes are also great, and I love how the Doctor and Ruby make an effort to blend in.

I appreciate the script's exploration of the complex relationship between music and emotions, a topic never previously explored on the show, and its connection to the piece's villain. And what better way to explore these things than through the music of the Beatles (or the absence thereof)? As such, this is less silly and lighthearted than Space Babies, even if it grows pretty bonkers towards the end.

This episode continues to explore the Doctor and Ruby's personalities. The Doctor’s granddaughter Susan is referenced, and the Doctor admits he doesn’t know where she is since the Time Lords were wiped out by the Master.

It takes longer for this episode to get going than it did for Space Babies, as there is a greater focus on the characters and the emotional beats (such as during the exceedingly lengthy scene with Ruby playing the piano), leaving the main plot and Maestro brewing in the background. The middle part feels like a lengthy build-up, leaning on Maestro's strengths and building on what happened in The Giggle, but not moving the plot forward all that much.

Finally, the episode delivers a great battle between the Doctor and Maestro, fought through music. The Devil's Chord isn't a musical episode per se, but music plays a pivotal role, which makes it stand out effectively.

I must concede that the "twist at the end" was a reasonably amusing comedic device, despite the peculiar manner in which it concluded this episode with an elaborate dance routine. They then go overboard with this with that Big-inspired piano crossroads moment at the very end.

 

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RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

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I always love a reference to Finland in Doctor Who!

It’s creepy to hear the Maestro laugh with the same pattern we heard in The Giggle!

Composer Murray Gold makes his first uncredited cameo appearance as the pianist during the end song.

We meet the Arbringer here, a character looking like a child, killed by Maestro, and then suddenly popping up again at the end.

 

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

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With a striking villain performance and some of the best use of music in any Doctor Who episode, The Devil's Chord proves to be a whimsical adventure with a twist at the end!

“Favorite story across all of Doctor Who in any medium” is a difficult concept for me. My mind tends to sort things more like a tier list than an itemized ranking. If I had to pick one right now, as I write this, it would probably be the 8th Doctor book “The Blue Angel”. It’s wild and bold and experimental and weird, and it just works.

Sometimes stories are “weird” because they have weird images, like a giant owl attacking a shopping mall, or a man with a glowing green elephant for a head. Sometimes stories are “weird” because they have weird structural elements, like having fully half of a book taking place in a parallel universe where there’s no sci-fi elements and the Doctor and companions all share a house and oh no the overnight frost has just killed all their flowers. “The Blue Angel” does both of those and more. The roommate AU is effectively framed as the A-plot, and is somehow even more surreal than the stuff with the giant owls and the elephant man (you know, the stuff that’s actually happening in the canon universe), even when the B-plot decides to devote significant time to being a Star Trek parody. Anyway, “The Devil’s Chord” is this, but for TV.

To me, Doctor Who should always be experimenting, pushing boundaries, breaking rules. That’s why I love the wilderness era so much, you don’t get much weirder or more experimental than that. The thing is, once you’ve pushed a boundary, the boundary’s moved, so you have to go even farther to push it again and again. The ideal Doctor Who story doesn’t feel like a Doctor Who story. Like “The War Valeyard”, or “All of Time and Space”, or “Heaven Sent”, or “Scherzo”, it should take you on a journey from “What could that collection of words possibly mean?” through “Wait, you can do that?”, before ending on “This is one of the greatest things I’ve ever watched/listened to/read/consumed.”

Don’t get me wrong, I like “World Enough and Time” and “The Caves of Androzani” and all that, I can appreciate good writing, it’s just… It’s like the 12th Doctor book “Big Bang Generation”. I can accept that, objectively speaking, it’s not good, but it gives me a feeling that I can only describe as mixing all the flavors at a soda fountain. It’s an assault on the senses, and it gets points for that. I believe the word I’m looking for is “maximalist”.

Is “The Devil’s Chord” technically better written than any of the other stories I mentioned? No, of course not, it’s a collection of cool scenes that just kind of approximate a finished story. But for me, there’s just something special about a story whose synopsis is “Yes”.

CAMP

 

Oh but The Devil's Chord was fun. Jinkx Monsoon absolutely killed it as the Maestro, what a character! I really loved the storytelling theme we seem to be picking up this series, with the fourth-wall breaks, the Maestro playing the show theme on piano, and the Doctor being able to hear the soundtrack. The musical number, much like in Church on Ruby Road, sucked, but by god was it fun

 

I only wish we maybe toned down the soundtrack a bit. It could have been fun, when Maestro had stolen the music, to not have any backing music either! But this is Murray Gold we're talking about, and whilst I fully agree the guy knows how to make good music, he doesn't know when to stop making it

Season 1 (Series 14); Episode 2 --- "The Devil's Chord" by Russell T. Davies

Ok, Space Babies was an embarrassment, sure, but it can't get any worse... right? Actually, it can't, Space Babies is (I hope) as bad as it gets this season and The Devil's Chord is actually pretty alright, though I'm not on the bandwagon declaring it one of the greatest episodes of all time or anything. It's the token historical and we're heading to the swinging 60s to sort of but not really meet the Beatles as a contemporary and relative of the Celestial Toymaker runs amok in Abbey Road.

When Ruby suggests going to see the recording of the Beatles' first album, the pair are shocked to find a severe lack of decent music in London. Soon, they discover something's very wrong - a omnipotent being has been playing with time, and the world is coming to an end.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I might come back to this episode and hate it, Space Babies might've just clouded my vision, but The Devil's Chord was some, dare I say it, decent TV. It took itself seriously! It wasn't catering to literal toddlers! The characters were complex and had emotions, they felt like real people! It goes to show the difference a tight script can make to a story. I had good fun watching this episode, mostly because Jinkx Monsoon killed it as the ridiculously camp Maestro, who just had this infectious in every scene they were in. The directing was especially good here, even if there were a few too many Dutch tilts and it was littered with amazing moments: Ruby walking into a ruined London in a brilliant echo of The Pyramids of Mars, the score turning out to be diegetic as Ruby is kidnapped, the Christmas music playing from a captured Ruby, the episode was fun and it was pretty well written. Another quick note is that the Doctor acts like the Doctor here; he feels like an ages old creature enjoying the small things in life, silently looking out onto London, itching to see the Beatles, encouraging people to follow their dreams, it felt like the Doctor.

However, here or there I found a few issues. For one, the Beatles themselves really aren't anything to do with this episode. You could cut them out and the episode would mostly be the same, George and Ringo don't even have lines. Plus, the casting is really bad, even outside the poster. Whilst I do really enjoy the Maestro, there were a few too many scenes where they just stood around monologuing their plan and, for all they're built up to be, they really don't do much in the episode as it's all pretty small scale. The world is ending but we're running around an empty music studio without anybody in danger; since the Maestro can only attack the Doctor and Ruby, who we know won't die, there really isn't much tension built up around them. Also, the episode once again ended in a dance number, which is becoming a recurring theme and, like before, there is no rhyme or reason for this happening, which just annoys me.

The Devil's Chord was just about the biggest step up in quality I could've imagined, even if it wasn't perfect. It was fun, it was the right level of camp and it was built on a tight script though it struggled in areas with the usual suspects for RTD and ended on another annoyingly logicless musical number.

6/10

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Pros:

+ The Maestro is an infectiously fun villain played to perfection by Jinkx Monsoon

+ The Doctor feels so much more in character this episode

+ Full of effortlessly fun moments with really great ideas behind them

+ Has actual character development and emotional moments behind it

+ I really like what the season arc's shaping up to be, it feels much more fleshed out than RTD's old tactic of just name dropping something every episode

+ Fantastic and beautiful direction from Ben Chessell

 

Cons:

- The Maestro didn't feel as big a threat as they were made out to be, mostly due to the lack of urgency or things shown to be at stake

- The Beatles are entirely sidelined for the whole episode and their inclusion feels pointless

- One too many scenes of people just spouting exposition to thin air

- Surprisingly small scale, only really walking around a single building

- The final dance number was not quite egregious as the one in The Church on Ruby Road but it was still pretty bad

The fun is toned back just a tiny bit for this one, but not the sillyness.

RTD continues to show that this is the same show that started 60 years ago, referencing Susan and having a scene that directly echoes one in "Pyramids of Mars"

The Maestro is an incredible villain, the stakes are high with another enemy as powerful as the Toymaker and they certainly carry the menace needed to match up with the Toymaker. This episode set up even more for the future and the Doctor practically brought a demolition crew to the fourth wall at the end of it. So many plot threads I'm concerned it won't live up to it.

Now this is more like it, clever quips, good writing, stakes, charm, camp and emotion, this is the good stuff right here.
I must admit after Space Babies, I was a little bit worried, but now, so siree, I am deeply excited, and I must say it was a really good idea to release both of these at the same time.
9/10

LOVED THIS ONE which isn’t surprising even a little because i love episodes where everything goes bonkers like this and the Giggle, i love a music theme, i love fourth wall breaks, and i especially love a big hammy villain who chews the scenery and laughs and screams and terrorizes everyone. i am so big on DW having magic in it. or at least things incomprehensible enough to be thought of as magic. it feels correct.

LOVE Maestro. the makeup is so on point particularly in that final outfit with the sickly looking dark eyes and smears around the mouth... and what a performance. good lord. they were tearing that shit UP. exactly as terrifying as necessary.

I’m liking the reoccurring stuff so far this season of stories/contrivance/formula and music… it really is reminding me of what i’ve seen of the Eighth Doctor Adventures and the way DWs form as a fiction series kind of gets addressed in those books. SO interested to know where all of this is going.

also i will admit when i saw the double decker bus with the number 77 parked in the background of i really did think it was a 22, and after how much I’ve been joking about Iris showing up in the new series i almost lost my mind.

5/5 for me BABY Maestro you are my everything…mwah

Wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this one, but it blew me away. A beautifully absurd romp through history.

RTD's introduction of fantasy elements and the idea of gods without sci-fi explanations is paying off in full here, I wasn't sure about the Goblins, and whilst the Toymaker was amazing, he was an existing villain. Maestro is one of the best villains the show has ever had, their erratic nature is so much fun to watch whilst still being terrifying, because it really feels like they could do anything. The Master has been somewhat like this since Simm, but the powers of the pantheon of gods being introduced here take it to a whole new level.

Ncuti and Millie are just as perfect as in Space Babies, and Ncuti really gets to show off his dramatic skills here, we see glimpses of a darker Doctor peering through, and I can't wait to see more. I suspect Boom! will show us more, based on the glimpses we've seen.

The time jump took me by surprise, really reinforcing the idea that RTD just is not interested in companion setup. I suppose with the reduced episode count he wanted to get straight to the meat of the season rather than wasting half the season on setup, but it does feel a bit odd. These two episodes have quite a difficult task, they have to introduce the concept of the show to new viewers, whilst also not boring existing viewers. This was easier for S1, because it had been so long since the show ended that the fanbase that didn't need anything reintroducing was much smaller, but there's a much more careful balance that needs to be had here, and I'm not totally sure yet whether they've managed it.

If the season continues on like this, I think it's safe to say we're back.
Who's next week's written by again?

... shit.

8.5/10