Love the commitment to changing outfits regularly, especially since episode 2 and 3 have distinctly different atmospheres

I love industrial space crew episodes, grungy or sleek, and they throw us straight into the action with this one, and then create a really cool sense of dread and atmosphere. It's also great that in the trailer for this series, they don't show the 'monster' for this episode. The establishing shot of the mining centre enveloped in darkness far off in the distance oozes suspense. It's really cool to see Ncuti's Doctor interacting with an environment that aesthetically comes off as a Capaldi episode. The score adds to the sense of foreboding. I feel like they should have had either Belinda or the Doctor find out that the crew don't know anything about Earth instead of the scenes being back to back, so that there is a dramatic irony for one of them, it would probably be better if it was Belinda that found out first because she has more of a stake in the Earth ending, and it could be mildly shrugged off until she mentions it to the Doctor at the end of the episode in the TARDIS, for example, so that it's an idea that is briefly mentioned and seen as slightly weird, but comes into more context when the Doctor learns about it.

Splitting the companion from the Doctor in a horror episode is always a good way to go in terms of exposing how the companions act when vulnerable, especially since this is the first time Belinda's been seperated from the Doctor since she met him. It worked really well to solidify companions in Turn Left, Family of Blood/Human Nature etc. in the first RTD era, and even pretty decently for Ruby in 73 Yards before it became convoluted by the whole evil Prime Minister thing. It's really interesting that she tries to keep her cool, even denying what she can see with her own eyes, at the risk of inconveniencing/misleading the others. This could link to the idea that every time she asks to go home and the Doctor says they can't, that she is repressing her feelings so as to not make him think that she is as worried as she is, and maybe this could lead to a point where it builds up to a point where she can't bottle up her emotions anymore to please him. It's a good way for her to react because it is not only in keeping with how she has been up to this point, but it also helps to develop our understanding of her reactions and motives from her primary point of view.

The sound effect when the thing slinks behind Aliss is genuinely terrifying. Okay so I'm watching this as I'm typing but they said extonic radiation, and then mentioned that the planet surface was diamonds: is this Midnight?????? Are we going to see the Midnight monster?!!?!?! woaoaoaoaooah yes it is!!!! Don't know how I feel about reintroducing the Midnight monster because it was so good as a bottle episode, and to reference what is in my opinion one of the best episodes ever is so risky, because it will always be inherently linked to Midnight, and the episodes are incredibly different in most aspects.

I did unfortunately think that the scene where the characters were being thrown into the air was quite goofy, and I'm not sure that they meant for it to be. It's good to see the Doctor put his foot down about not allowing the creature to leave the planet even when it isn't attached to somebody who for all intents and purposes is dead already. And the implied twist at the end is pretty neat.

Wow, such an interesting concept. Animation and illustration has been such an engrained part of Doctor Who, given the amount of animated remasters of lost serials, spinoff animations like Scream of the Shalka, and as many graphic novels and comics as there have been. I've always wanted the live action series to incorporate animation, and I even had a dream a few years ago that the 60th would include stop-motion models and sets, so this theoretically is everything I've been wanting for a while.

This is definitely my favourite episode so far since RTD took back the reins, and possibly my favourite since Moffat left. You can feel that the writing team has changed, everything seems a bit more concise, and the dialogue has markedly improved in quality. The introduction of Mr Ring-a-Ding was pretty standardly spooky, but it did its job, and his character is equally charismatic to Maestro from last season.

In a similar manner to Thin Ice and Rosa, they actually acknowledge racism and segregation in a realistic manner, not like how it's brushed off callously by the Doctor in the Shakespeare Code, or where in the same episode, Shakespeare's ignorance is played for laughs (Martha deserved better).

The scene in the diner with the mother was quite striking, and it's there that I first noticed that the soundtrack this series seems more memorable than the last, I'm actually being able to pay attention to not only the grandiose pieces of music that draw attention to big moments, but the tracks that play in the less high-energy scenes, like in the diner. I think the best acting in the episode might be from Mrs Lowenstein in sed scene: she nails the exasperation of a mother with a missing son who has almost lost all hope, her performance seems to have more human subtlety than the other characters (including the Doctor and Belinda unfortunately).

I do appreciate the effort to add depth and purpose to most of if not every character. It hurt me in Monster House (2006) when Mr Nevercracker had a dead wife being kept alive by supernatural forces, so it hurt me here when they did a similar thing with Mr Pye. I do think that this can be faulty at times, but I'll get into that more when I address the fourth-wall break later on in my review.

Mr Ring-a-Ding's introduction to the Doctor and Belinda is great, I love him and may possibly have to bookmark him as a potential Halloween costume. The ye olde sound effects and rotoscope-reminiscient animation style is really good at paying homage to the point in time where animation really started to feel alive. He is so engagingly unhinged as a villain, and goes to prove that we don't need the Master constantly in order to have camp psychos bouncing off the walls like personified fireworks. Speaking of camp psychos, I kind of enjoy that the Pantheon of Gods feel like JoJo bosses, I know some other people don't, but it's working for me personally.

I wish the part where the Doctor and Belinda were animated went on longer, maybe even for half of the episode; it would avoid that clunky trauma dump about Gallifrey at least. It would be so cool if we stayed in the animated world and they spent a bit of runtime trying to figure out how to break out other than just being vulnerable. Then you could keep in the scene with the police officer in the theatre afterwards as a live action layer that they have to break out from and (in my personal opinion) completely cut out the fourth-wall break.

Okay, so, might be a controversial opinion, I don't know, I don't really follow tons of Doctor Who discourse online. I really didn't like the fourth-wall break. And I understand it, that within this universe, Mr Ring-a-Ding could appeal to one of the Doctor's flaws (narcissism) to convince him to stay in a trap where he is the main character of a big TV show and that there are notable pieces of iconography from his subconscious that these fictional fans could hypothetically be drawn to: fez, scarf, cyberman, meep, etc. but everything about this scene is so hyper-specific to real life. And I really don't think this scene serves any purpose outside of fan service, or a gotcha moment where RTD has baited us into thinking it's real life but it actually isn't. It is so upsetting to me because it seems ultimately meaningless. And even if I did feel happy about the meta-ness of this plot point, it offers a pretty reductive view of Doctor Who fans for the most part: overly critical, annoying, having unanimous opinions about episodes, even saying #RIPDoctorWho is cringily twisting the knife, given that a post series 15 hiatus is more likely than not. If we remove what these characters are supposed to represent (us), and just see them as characters who have only been on screen for a few minutes, it really doesn't make sense why they've chosen to score the scene with A Sad Man With a Box either, because that song is supposed to represent an unconcievable amount of yearning and loneliness, incomprehensible pain suffered by a heavily flawed and traumatised near immortal, it represents the Doctor's sadness and guilt, of which we could never even begin to understand, and it represents these emotions so beautifully, and so it then feels cheapened by its reprisal here for characters who aren't real, have only existed for a few minutes, and we have no prior knowledge of. Like for comparison, Ross in the Sontaran double-episodes is a more developed character, his death is sadder, and it would still feel wrong to play A Sad Man With a Box in that moment. There's a similar vibe about how the Doctor keeps crying every episode, there is an aspect of being told when to be sad as an audience member, instead of actually being given something substantial to cry to. 'We love you so much' did make me cry, but that's because it appealed to my specific life experiences and how they link to this show. If I wasn't already a massive fan, it wouldn't sit the same way, and I keep remembering how Russell T Davies said that he wants this era starting with Church on Ruby Road to appeal to the younger generation, but he keeps seeming too hung up on trying to appeal to the children he already raised with his original run, people like me, which is nice that he's still thinking about us, but the younger generation should have their own experiences with the show and be able to get what I did from watching revival.

The 3D modelling of Mr Ring-a-Ding when he gains power is really awesome, and so well-done, there are times where I do really appreciate parts of what they've been able to do with the Disney budget, even if I wish Disney had less input. The goodbye between Mr Pye and his wife was beautiful, and it could have been even better if we learned a bit more about their relationship, the simple everyday things about loving another person that you take for granted until they're gone. Again even Mr Ring-a-Ding's ending made me quite teary, the whole thing was quite ethereal and evocative.

Not to end on a pedantic note, but old film stock isn't explosive, it's flammable. Sorry if that's nit-picky, but the explosive nature of it does play a part in the climax.

Going to go through in bullet points because my thoughts are kind of scattered on this.

1. Immediately confused by the implication that the Doctor killed a bunch of people on life support when he blew the power grid to the hospital.
2. I wish there was more time for us to think that MissBelindaChandra One was utopic before disrupting that perception, even if we know deep down that something has to be wrong for the story to work. The immediacy of a lot of the pacing doesn't give us enough time as an audience to really get to grips with everything and everyone, especially characters that are going to die in two minutes. This is a trend that we saw start in Joy to the World (where we are introduced to side characters less than 10 minutes before their departure) that has been carried on into this series. There's a similar thing with Manny with whom you can tell that they've gone a bit too heavy-handed with the 'Queen Belinda' stuff so early on, to the point where we really didn't need the 'This is all your fault, Queen Belinda' ADRed over during the scene where the base is compromised: the look on his face was enough to convey his hatred to be honest.
3. The AI Generator is a dumb name for an AI Generator, even despite the twist. A lot of the sci-fi-esque names in this are pretty generic and unmemorable, except from the planet name itself being MissBelindaChandra One.
4. I feel like they did a decent job of establishing Belinda's character, she doesn't seem super unique from past companions, but I do prefer her to Ruby already in terms of characterisation, and she does take as much agency as she is afforded early on, which is important. She also reacts semi-realistically to events and revelations. Something feels a bit off about the line delivery but that's nothing we haven't seen in pretty much every episode over the last 7 years. So far this is a pretty good introduction.
5. The pop-culture references don't feel as bad as from what I remember of last year, but 'yass queen' did hurt my soul a bit.
6. Since they said that she is a Queen by name only, I don't understand why they would listen to her when she says not to shoot the rebels, surely they would take her and then also shoot the rebels anyway.
7. Planet of the Incels line made me want to die inside, it was just too much, the implication was quite clear without it.
8. They finally gave him some flaws, yay! And she doesn't like him by the end of the episode. This is a genuinely good jumping off point for the series to come, and I look forward to her challenging him more. And the ending was really ominous.

The cross-cutting to the Doctor fighting the giant birds in the first episode was funny, and it let the Brigadier and Jo have a more active role than what we're used to seeing. This is easily the best Doctor outfit to grace the screen throughout the show's history, and the hot pink acrylic gyroscope was a pretty nifty piece of set dressing; overall the colours in this serial are gorge.

I don't usually like when they palm off a long-running female companion by giving her a man to fawn over (especially if he keeps calling her kid and tells her that they're getting married after a few days), so at least here there's an added factor of adventure, that she wants to go to the Amazon because of her interest in funghi. It's also a bit depressing that this story of anti-pollution, renewable energy, and high-protein meat alternatives was broadcast in 1973, given the current state of affairs. The Brigadier bonding with the science hippies was really fun though; this serial as a whole has good humour.

The self-termination of Ralph Fell was quite striking to me, I think because even the villainous Stevens treated it with solemnity. Because the deaths are one by one, maybe they feel more grounded and drawn out, to the point where I'm rooting for each inflicted person to survive, even if I know that they won't.

ow! my feelings!!

If you ever want to bring my government down in two words, say 'Ten seconds' exasperatedly, then shrug and walk off.

Vegan matriarch warriors versus chumbly-driving gunky boys is a conflict I can get behind any day. Maybe it's because I watched the animated version but I didn't find it boring like a lot of other people, and I actually enjoyed Steven as a companion, unlike in the Time Meddler (which is a great serial just not because of Steven).

First part is really good, we've never seen the Doctor's mistakes in flying the TARDIS end up with this much of a painful result for the companion's family before. I like the premise of the episode, the action and intrigue is there. It works well as a two-parter, and allows there to be more reveals than what we would normally get. The fat and fart jokes are a bit naff but I found them funny when I was younger so I guess the purpose there was to appeal to children, since Doctor Who is meant to be a family show: adults get the innuendos that kids don't understand yet and kids get the toilet humour that the adults find lame. Also never noticed Toshiko until now, mainly because I hadn't seen Torchwood until this year.

This is the first time (in the order that I've been watching it) that I've actually wanted a side-character in the classic era to join the crew, I'll miss you every day c*nty lock-picking thespian <3.

This is also the second time the Doctor has knowingly caused a historical fire and then dipped out (See the Romans).

This is one of the stories that whenever I rewatch the show, I remember as more boring than it is. It doesn't have many stand-out moments, but there are many things that work in its favour. We have the start of the Bad Wolf plotline, the most developed character to have died at this point in the show, period costuming (which I always love). The Gelth used to scare me to death when I was younger, so I used to avoid this episode if possible. Out of the first three episodes, it's definitely the weakest in terms of action and memorability, but it's still pretty strong when you contrast it to some of the later historical episodes. Dickens actually is a key part of the plot, and is written specific to the year that the episode is yet, not just as a cameo to harken back to a different time and jump in at the last second for no reason and without any character purpose like with the Beatles in The Devil's Chord.