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

“THE STORY & THE ENGINE – A CUT ABOVE THE REST”

With The Story & the Engine, Doctor Who enters uncharted narrative territory. Penned by acclaimed poet and playwright Inua Ellams, this episode blends Afrofuturism, theatre, and folklore into a lyrical bottle episode that’s equal parts fable and sci-fi. Set almost entirely in Omo’s barbershop – a warm, bustling haven nestled within a vibrant Nigerian bazaar – it’s a story unlike anything the show has done before, and quite possibly unlike anything it will do again.

What instantly sets this episode apart is its striking cultural texture. From the predominantly Black cast to the atmospheric setting soaked in African storytelling traditions, the episode pulses with a sense of place and identity rarely seen in Doctor Who. Ellams’s background as a playwright is immediately evident in the episode’s theatrical staging, its rhythmical dialogue, and its focus on character-driven monologues. Despite the small-scale premise – a group of people stuck in a barber’s while stories are exchanged – the result feels mythic in scale.

A BARBER’S SHOP WITH SECRETS

The barbershop setting is simple yet conceptually rich. The idea that storytelling fuels the titular Engine – a literal one that must be powered for the group to be released – is an ingenious narrative concept, and it allows the episode to celebrate oral storytelling, folklore, and the sharing of personal truths. The visual decision to display the characters’ stories in the barbershop window adds a layer of enchantment and theatricality to the otherwise mundane location. The shop becomes a stage, and each haircut a performance.

Musically, Murray Gold keeps up the strong work, with the score subtly incorporating African rhythms and instrumentation. These elements, alongside the warm cinematography and the grounded, community-centred vibe of the bazaar, bring the setting vividly to life.

THE DOCTOR’S HAVEN… OR A TRAP?

We’re told that this is not the Doctor’s first visit to Omo’s barbershop – it’s a place he frequents when he needs to unwind, to feel welcome, to be seen. There’s a comfort here for him, particularly in his current body. His walk through the bazaar at the beginning, full of familiar faces and greetings, suggests a personal history – and a life the Doctor lives between the cracks of his usual adventures. It’s a beautiful notion: that this chaotic, wandering alien has a barbershop he calls home.

Yet this safe space becomes a trap. Omo, who greets the Doctor warmly, has in fact lured him there. He knows that the Doctor’s stories are potent enough to power the Engine singlehandedly, thus freeing the other captives. When this is revealed, it lands as a painful betrayal. The Doctor has been used – not out of malice, but desperation. And Ncuti Gatwa sells the hurt beautifully, bringing an emotional intensity that anchors the story.

THE BARBER AND THE MECHANICAL SPIDER

Presiding over the Engine is the titular Barber, played with velvety menace and cold charisma by Ariyon Bakare (returning to Doctor Who for the first time since playing Leandro in The Woman Who Lived). He’s not your usual moustache-twirling villain. He’s calm, calculated, and poetic, and his motivations are rooted in a deeply personal sense of injustice. He once helped establish the pantheon of storytelling gods – but now, he’s been forgotten, unacknowledged. His plan? To pilot a colossal mechanical spider to the centre of the Nexus – a web of myths, legends, and stories – and sever the gods from humanity in protest. If humans live by stories, then destroying the gods risks destroying humanity itself.

It’s a big, abstract idea – high-concept and metaphysical. Admittedly, it’s not always clearly explained, and the details of how the spider and the Engine connect are a little muddled. But Ellams isn’t aiming for hard sci-fi logic here; he’s crafting a poetic metaphor about legacy, recognition, and the interconnectedness of stories and people. The fact that this grand mythology all stems from a barber’s chair makes it feel all the more unique.

The reveal that the barbershop sits on top of a giant mechanical spider is one of the most visually ambitious moments of the season – though it’s a shame that the trailers gave it away in advance. In the episode itself, the twist also arrives a bit too early to land with maximum impact. But the spider’s design is striking, and its lumbering journey toward the Nexus adds tension even when the characters remain physically stationary.

ABBY, THE NEXUS, AND A FUGITIVE MEMORY

Abby, the Barber’s assistant, is a quiet presence at first – watching, listening, seemingly powerless. But her significance becomes clear in one of the episode’s most jaw-dropping revelations: she is a former acquaintance of the Fugitive Doctor. Jo Martin returns briefly in a glorious flashback, revealing that the Doctor once abandoned Abby on a mission. This moment is powerful not just for its fan-pleasing shock, but for the way it re-centres Abby’s entire arc. She has been waiting, wondering, perhaps resenting. And yet, when the time comes, she helps the Doctor save the day. It's a beautiful payoff that redeems both her and the Barber.

The Doctor and Belinda venture into the heart of the Nexus – via a maze representing the storytelling web itself – where they find the Engine, now visualised as an abstract, organic construct. It morphs from a brain to a tree, evocative of Yggdrasil, the Norse World Tree, complete with a glowing, beating heart at its core. The Doctor’s climactic act is wonderfully low-key: he doesn’t fight or destroy. He tells a story. A single, infinite story: “I’m born. I die. I’m born.” It’s a moment of pure Doctor Who – simple, profound, and poetic.

REDEMPTION, NOT RETRIBUTION

What’s especially refreshing is that the Barber survives. Rather than being vanquished or imprisoned, he is given a chance to make amends. Abby and the Doctor allow him to inherit the shop and continue telling stories. Few villains in Doctor Who get this kind of emotional closure, and it feels earned. The episode understands that storytelling is not just power – it’s healing.

BELINDA AND THE BABY THAT WENT NOWHERE

And then there’s Belinda. Once again, she’s pushed to the side-lines. She spends the first half of the episode inside the TARDIS, and the second mostly standing around the barbershop doing little of note. We do get a brief but affecting flashback to her days as a nurse – a rare return to her established profession – but this is the final time the show explores that aspect of her character. It’s a missed opportunity. Even more frustrating is the mystery baby she glimpses – one that looks exactly like Poppy from Space Babies. The moment is filmed as if it carries deep significance, but the rest of the season never addresses it. It ends up feeling like a forgotten thread, left dangling without resolution.

There’s also a subplot hinted at in the original script, where Belinda gets in trouble with local law enforcement in the bazaar. We see the beginnings of this scene, but the storyline never goes anywhere. It’s likely a victim of editing, but it further highlights how adrift her character has become.

THE SUPPORTING CAST: FILLER, NOT FEATURES

Beyond Omo, who is unfortunately sidelined once the main plot kicks in, the rest of the supporting cast – a group of Gumtree customers caught in the barbershop – have very little to do. They contribute a few lines here and there but are mostly passive observers. Given the episode’s emphasis on personal stories and emotional revelations, it’s a shame they weren’t given more development. There was potential for each character to share a tale, to enrich the tapestry of narratives. Instead, they remain background dressing.

📝VERDICT: 93/100

The Story & the Engine is a daring, lyrical, and culturally resonant piece of Doctor Who. Inua Ellams’s script rewires the show’s DNA, swapping exposition for poetry and explosions for metaphor. Though not every idea lands cleanly – and the sidelining of Belinda and the underdeveloped supporting cast are definite weak spots – the episode excels in atmosphere, originality, and emotional impact. Ariyon Bakare’s calm and quietly vengeful Barber is a standout villain, Abby’s backstory adds depth to the Doctor’s hidden past, and the themes of oral tradition, memory, and redemption give the hour weight beyond its minimalist setting. Not every experiment works – but when Doctor Who takes creative risks like this, the results can be truly unforgettable. A quiet classic in the making.

A really interesting concept and great to see a black-centered story without suffering at its core. The themes of community and humanity really struck well. And the animation in the window was very cool. I would also be remiss of I didn’t mention the Fugitive Doctor cameo which I enjoyed. My gripes aren’t too huge. While it made sense for Belinda to take the sideline, she exists as pretty much as nothing character in the story. Her “hurt people hurt people” statement ends up being clumsy and so the message doesn’t hit as hard as it could.

The Story and the Engine didn’t feel like anything else I’ve seen the show do. It’s definitely my favorite performance from Ncuti, really leaning into the mythical and otherworldly vibes. Also kudos to that bit where the Barber turns out not to be every trickster archetype-adjacent thing from all world mythology. I hate it when everything is actually the same thing. Points off for kind of being about how great Doctor Who is, I’m sick of self congratulatory metanarratives and it’s time to retire the trope where we see a bunch of past Doctor clips. This does not apply to the Jo Martin cameo, which actually fit the tone of the episode. The spider looks absolutely gorgeous though.

The Story & the Engine: A Richly Resonant Masterpiece

Every now and then, Doctor Who delivers something so different, so imaginative, that it takes my breath away. The Story & the Engine is just such a story. Unapologetically bold, emotionally rich, and conceptually dazzling, this episode is a striking testament to the creative power of the show at its best. Inua Ellams has given us something rare: a story that is both deeply personal and thematically universal. Moreover, it is, unquestionably, Doctor Who to its very core.

Experimental Brilliance, Rooted in Tradition

This episode is genuinely unlike anything else. Whilst it's tempting to search for comparisons, the truth is there’s nothing quite like it in the show’s long and storied history. It belongs to that select pantheon of experimental stories (e.g. The Edge of Destruction, The Mind Robber, Father’s Day, Turn Left, Listen, Heaven Sent et al.) that challenge format and expectation, and yet feel utterly at home in the Whoniverse.
It makes few, if any, concessions to casual viewers — and I adore it all the more for that. This is not an entry point. It’s a gift to long-time fans who crave boundary-pushing narrative wrapped in deeply thematic storytelling. It is a story to be savoured (like a rich feast), not casually consumed (like a cheap burger).

Emotional Tension Over Frantic Action and Jump Scares

This story is a perfect example of a very different kind of tension — one that trades jump scares and adrenaline for slow-burn emotional unease. At no point does The Story & the Engine aim for the “edge of your seat” suspense of episodes like The Well or 2005’s Dalek. It doesn’t need to. Instead, it cultivates a powerful and lingering emotional tension rooted in uncertainty, betrayal, and shifting boundaries. The initial inscrutability of the Barber — his motivations, his tone, his ambiguous authority — generates a creeping sense of unease. There’s an unsettling ‘offness’ to his presence, a violation, a trusted space becomes subtly unsafe because he is there. It is now his ‘establishment’. The barbershop, once a refuge, becomes compromised. The tension arises not from monsters in the shadows, but from the betrayal of trust and collapse of emotional boundaries.

This contrast is what makes the episode so powerful. It shares some DNA with Lux in its conceptual strangeness, but carves its own path. One moment in particular — when the Doctor is forced into the Barber’s chair against his will, protesting, “I’ve changed my mind” — hits with startling emotional force. It’s not the more familiar dramatics of being captured by monsters or soldiers in the employ of a megalomaniac. It's the mundanity of the barbershop (and its importance as social hub and safe space), and the everyday nature of the people involved, that makes it feel so much more violating. For me, it echoed the scene in Midnight, when the other passengers attempt to expel the Doctor. There’s a discomfort here that is quietly unsettling.

A Story of Safe Spaces, Betrayal, and Belonging

At the heart of The Story & the Engine lies something deeply resonant: the concept of the safe space, and the pain of its betrayal. The Doctor's connection to Omo’s Palace begins with its role as a haven — a place of respite rooted in community, culture, and a sense of kinship. His joy at being welcomed is palpable. And the betrayal of that trust — the realisation that he was seen as a solution rather than a friend — is devastating.

Ncuti Gatwa’s performance here is pitch-perfect. His pain is not just narrative; it’s desperately human (magnified through the lens of a Time Lord who has lived untold lives and years). The depth of his sense of betrayal, the hurt in his eyes — it lands with such weight because Ellams writes it with nuance, and Gatwa plays it with aching truth.

The episode tackles race and identity, yes, but it transcends them, exploring broader themes of isolation, acceptance, and community. It’s a story that speaks to anyone who’s ever felt disconnected from those around them, anyone who thinks they’ve found acceptance, only to have that joy snatched away to be left bereft and feeling like an outcast once more.

The Barber: A Villain Like No Other

Ariyon Bakare’s portrayal of the Barber is nothing short of extraordinary. The moment he names himself, cutting his own hair in defiance, is electric — layered with fury, vulnerability, pride, and centuries of pain. The performance is searing in its intensity, but never one-note. This is not a villain in the traditional sense, but a deeply wounded soul.

That naming scene is a pivotal moment — and such a masterclass in narrative tension. He seems momentarily larger than life, almost mythic, as he carves out a false identity with self-importance and anger — and then, in a beautifully executed turn, the Doctor and Belinda laugh. It’s not cruel. It’s cutting through the illusion. They see the lie. The tension punctures. From that point on, the Barber is still dangerous, but he’s no longer unknowable. He’s (rightly) diminished. His myth starts to unravel, and Abena begins her rise in narrative and emotional importance.

What makes the Barber so compelling is not just the power with which he begins, but the humanity with which he ends. His redemption — and it is a redemption — is one of the most emotionally satisfying narrative beats in the entire episode. It’s not a dramatic reversal or sudden absolution; it’s a gradual, earned realisation. He comes to see the truth in what Belinda tells Abena:

“Hurt people hurt people. Your father hurt you. The difference between good and evil is what we do with that pain.”

It’s a line that echoes throughout the Barber’s arc. He is not evil by nature, but someone who has caused harm in response to the pain and marginalisation he feels he has endured. His actions are those of a person trying to reclaim power in a world that stripped it from him, to simply be credited for what he has done — but in doing so, he risks becoming what he most despises.

The Doctor sees this clearly, warning him that through his actions, the Barber is becoming the very thing he sought to fight against. Crucially, the Barber listens (where ranting megalomaniacs would not). He hears it. In that moment of reflection and emotional reckoning, he begins to step back from the edge.

That recognition — that self-awareness — is the turning point. It’s what makes his redemption not just possible, but earned. Indeed, Bakare sells it perfectly, with a performance that moves from stormy fury to quiet, haunted self-realisation. It’s subtle, and it's devastatingly effective.

The Barber is one of Doctor Who’s most complex antagonists: a force of narrative and myth, yes, but also a man grappling with pain, pride, and the possibility of change. That makes his story not just powerful, but profoundly human.

The Barbershop as Mythic and Cultural Nexus

What struck me most personally is how the barbershop was treated as a sacred narrative space — not just a physical location but a site of cultural and emotional memory. Having worked in sub-Saharan Africa, I’ve experienced firsthand the beauty of communal storytelling: sitting around campfires with local rangers, sharing tales, laughter, and wisdom. Though the barbershop is a very different setting, the storytelling spirit is the same. The connection I felt watching this episode was deeply nostalgic, evoking memories of generosity, acceptance, and the power of shared stories. This is Doctor Who at its most human (and humane).

Though a key motivation for the Doctor’s initial love and patronage of Omo’s Palace is rooted in racial identity and discrimination, the episode succeeds in transcending any single issue. It becomes a universal exploration of the need for safe spaces and the consequences of their violation — whether on the basis of race, gender, neurodiversity, queerness, or any form of marginalisation. The emotional and intellectual core of the story speaks to the universal need for belonging.

The Steampunk-esque Tribal Spider Story Engine: A Conceptual Delight

Now let’s talk about THAT spider.

Some may dismiss it as inconsequential, but I found it delightful — both conceptually and biologically. The spider as a storytelling engine, traversing a cosmic tangle-web of ideas and imagination, felt so right. Its morphology, delightfully consistent with real-world spider taxa that weave tangle webs, added a layer of naturalistic joy. And it was so wonderfully Doctor Who — steampunk, strange, and mythic. In my book? Best spider the show has ever done. How else would you traverse a conceptual web of narrative, memory, and imagination than in a story-powered, mechanical, culturally resonant steampunk arachnid? I LOVED IT.

Final Thoughts

I’ve loved the Fifteenth Doctor’s era from the start, but The Story & the Engine feels like something special — an artistic high point, and a deeply personal favourite. It’s bold, strange, beautiful, and unapologetically itself.

I have one final thing to say.

Inua Ellams, thank you. Truly. The gods of storytelling smile upon us.

that was an absolutely insane story so far. so personal and creative with great characters and interesting themes about the importance of stories, forgiveness, and community. inua ellams needs to write more doctor who and russell needs to stick the landing now