The sophomore outing for the Thirteenth Doctor is an interesting litmus test for the era as a whole. Its cinematic style of camera movement and the sheer size of its environments definitely wowed me the first time that I watched it, and the beat-by-beat of the story is competent for the most part. I do feel that we begin to see some problems emerge here, though, mostly related to characterization.

For one thing, The Ghost Monument seems like it doesn't quite understand why the Doctor does and believes the things she does. Case in point, the "No guns, never use 'em" maxim which she lays down on her companions. Of course, even a casual viewer will remember previous instances of the Doctor shunning firearms. What Ghost Monument seems to lose track of is that this long-held policy is ultimately one of harm reduction, of refusing to be the first person to escalate a given conflict, and valuing words over weapons. Considering that we're dealing with non-sentient sniper bots who are already shooting at the gang in this instance, however, none of these points really apply. The Doctor's scolding of Ryan after he doesn't quite manage to take them all down makes my eyes roll, because it feels like the episode has remembered the form of the Doctor's principles without actually recalling their function.

I was also surprised, on the first watch, to find that relatively little happens in the way of characterization for the companions in this episode. Their reactions to their first arrival on an alien planet are curiously muted in comparison with previous companions, which feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. Yaz and Graham don't get a lot of discrete character beats aside from showing mild concern at Angstrom's trauma or Epzo's dog-eat-dog ethics. Ryan gets a little more, but the one major moment, his rushing out to fight the sniper-bots, feels very much at odds with his more cautious and deferential characterization in the previous episode. By this stage in most other seasons of NuWho, one already has a clear idea of who the companions are as people, and how they'll react to new situations. At this stage, I could not say the same about this TARDIS team, and that really perplexed me.

To round off this stream of consciousness with a more positive note, my favorite moment from this episode is the second scene, where Yaz wakes up on Epzo's spaceship to find the Doctor already in full crisis mode. It's very nice stuff.

Altogether, a decent story on a structural level, but it has enough dragging it down that I can't say I outright like it.