Doctor WhoGets Trippy as Hell and Trips Over Itself in the Process

Last night’sDoctor Whowas an existential deep dive into the power of human cooperation , of asshole gods , ofmental health , and of the importance of communication on all three of those fronts . Or , rather , it wanted to be . In try out to lay out a trippy crystalline lens into all those estimation , it turn on over a problem that ’s recently become quite apparent for the show .

“ Can You Hear Me ? ” has several latitude to last week’senvironmentally inclined adventure , “ Praxeus . ” It , like the episode before it , wants to represent with the large grouping that currently finds itself reside in the TARDIS by spreading them all out on solo adventures ( well , this time more like solo vacations , as the Doctor drops her friends back in Sheffield for a quick curb - in with their normal lives ) before pull back them back together through a unusual new threat . It also partake in a desire to tackle important material - earthly concern themes , albeit in a general sense , placing mental wellness struggles at the heart of its disparate story ribbon just as last calendar week hone in on microplastics defilement .

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A lonesome Doctor makes a quick trip to 14th century Aleppo.

A lonesome Doctor makes a quick trip to 14th century Aleppo.Image: BBC

While this week ’s episode also admit a threat with direct thematic connections to the wide jabbing of the episode , “ Can You Hear Me ? ” differs in that its connections experience more esoteric than they do oblique . The bird - bear virality in “ Praxeus ” literally fed off of the microplastics sink in our major planet and has parallel to this week ’s threat — two chaos - loving immortal beings hollo Zellin ( Ian Gelder ) and Rakaya ( Clare - Hope Ashitey ) who utilize their godlike world power and general boredom with being able to exist for eons to sow fearfulness and trauma across the cosmos in parliamentary law to keep themselves .

But the nature of Zellin and Rakaya ’s sword of chaos is less literal and more internalized , a model the episode uses to often great visual effect , from the storybook introduction of the gods ’ arrival in our airplane of existence to how they mentally harangue our heroes , catapult us through some truly chilling nightmare of Ryan , Yaz , and Graham ’s deep concern , all rooted in some very relatable realities .

Sadly , the “ Praxeus ” comparisons continued in less positive expression , as well . Where this episode threatens to fall aside most is in its structure and the realization that Doctor Who is on a regular basis stretch out itself flimsy to adapt the perspective of three companions that , over a time of year - and - half into their TARDIS tenure , still feel like people we just know . Having to dedicate its opening one-half to squad TARDIS separating from each other , coming boldness to face with the threat of the calendar week — one that handily link up them all together in ways the script just just brushes retiring in an attempt to get things rolling — and then coming back together again to confront it smack of “ Praxeus ” ’ own attempt to do the same . Only this clock time Doctor Who does n’t at least leverage that to make a sense of increased scale or grandness to the transactions . or else it just feels like muddled pacing , as we watch Ryan , Yaz , Graham , and the Doctor all have to come to the same conclusion , but are left to in reality see why until all that ’s clunkily gotten out of the way .

Yaz and Ryan are both surprisingly eager to spend some time outside of the TARDIS.Image: BBC

By the time the Doctor ultimately brings her Quaker together ( as well as new friend Tahira , play by Aruhan Galieva , whose additional front only further play up the issues of having too many comrade in the intermixture , temporary or otherwise ) , the episode has to come to a screeching halt again . Face to face — or creepy separating nightmare digit to creepy tell nightmare finger — with Zellin , the brakes are bang as , one after the other , we see each appendage of Team TARDIS ’ nightmare preyed on so Zellin can resign his mate from her imprisonment .

At least this time it does so to sail some interesting backstory for our associate . As Zellin ’s bizarro - fingerbreadth plumb the depths of their creative thinker , Doctor Who acquire dreamy in a way it really has n’t since last season’sbeautifully surreal“It lead You out , ” albeit with a much darker bent . The Doctor ’s incubus is arguably the least intriguing of all , another mysterious flirt for the “ Timeless Child ” subplot simmering out throughout the season . But Ryan , Yaz , and Graham ’s nightmares all verbalize to tarry fears and truth that have been eating aside at them unverbalized until Zellin ’s curse brings them to the fore .

Ryan , isolate since the death of Grace and his remote father’sattempts to reconnect , still fears the real possibility of his adventures in Time and Space irrevocably undoing his friendly relationship back in Sheffield , connections to hoi polloi he needs as much as they require their connection to him for their own genial wellness . Yaz , several long time on from high school bullying that push her to run aside from home and nearly to far more life-threatening brink , is forced to confront a perverted version of the police officer whose outreach ultimately help pull her back from that brink . Graham , perhaps most cruelly of all , faces a twofold horror : not just a surprisal income tax return from Sharon D. Clarke as a specter of Grace needling him over his power to save her , but a lingering awe that his Crab might one day return , and without her there to brook him , the opening that this clock time he may not endure it .

Image: BBC

Yaz and Ryan are both surprisingly eager to spend some time outside of the TARDIS.Image: BBC

These are all excellent vignettes for these characters , but dumped out one after the other — colligate by ink - wash manner fadeaways as we jump from one captive psyche to another — they’re rob of some of their emotional impact . These all feel like of import vista of these characters ’ liveliness , like they should inform their arcs over the course of a time of year , but they ’re just jotted out one after the other like a peculiar checklist because the instalment started with furcate our companions for their own individual short electric discharge , and now they have to be continued at the disbursement of the larger whole . All while the consultation is left to question what the hell Zellin and Rakaya are up to when their eye turn to Earth as the next internet site of their chaotic games ( the answer , it turns out , is to … walk up and down a sinister Sheffield suburban street for a bit ? ) .

When Companion Trauma Time is over and the bit come for Zellin and Rakaya to at last be kill in the instalment ’s sexual climax , the time spent navigating those myriad dreamscapes means everything rush along to a clearly afloat conclusion . The overarching substance is a baronial one — as the Doctor notes , humanity discover the strength to master its care and traumas in speak out about them with others , in a sensation of oneness and biotic community that , as eternal and distanced deity , Zellin and Rakaya could never realise themselves . But because it takes so much time to get to that point , it ’s quickly doled out in a small speech from the Doctor before she can conveniently do some sonic - screwdriver handwaving and zap the two eternals back into the prison Rakaya had been seal off in in the first place .

And then , just as short , the episode has to end , its commentary on genial wellness issues indelicately benumb as it once again has to re - ingeminate those points three time over to wrap up Ryan , Yaz , and Graham ’s arcs over the instalment with satisfying conclusion . Or , at least two of those arcs , as we ’ll talk over in a bit .

Image: BBC

Zellin and Rakaya, excited to, uh, finger humanity?Image: BBC

Having such a large group of primary characters like this has always call for a fine Libra for Doctor Who , one that this loop of the show and this particular iteration of the TARDIS “ fam ” has less - than - graciously navigate from the get - go . Last season ’s focus on Ryan and Graham ’s human relationship cameat the expenseof giving Yaz a satisfying electric discharge , while this season ’s attempts to rectify that have oftenclashed withindividual episode’spacing and structure , leading to rush and dissatisfactory conclusions . They all ultimately speak to a show that bring in the potential of take all these unlike voices in the TARDIS together , but not actually being able-bodied to do something with that potential . The longer it seems to consume it , the more episodes like “ Praxeus ” and “ Can You Hear Me ? ” feel like they ’re uncouth — interesting ideas that are allow feeling half - explored by a need to adapt one ( or two ) few many cooks at the TARDIS console .

Assorted Musings

So … let ’s talk about how the Doctor react to Graham ’s very earnest fears about the possible comeback of his Crab . It ’s a heartrending moment for him , give everything he ’s gone through , and understandably it take a lot for him to admit that , in spite of everything his doctor have been order him , the thought of his cancer generate and how he ’d grapple eats away at him . And the MD ’s response is … to make light of the fact that she ca n’t even volunteer him a banality before completely hedge the conversation ? It feel horrifyingly out of place and wee our hero count fantastically pachydermatous out of nowhere . Maybe it would ’ve made more sense earlier on in the season , as “ Orphan 55”’sstark electronic messaging did , where there could be at least some incrimination pin on the fact that the Doctor is still going through a lot ofpersonal traumas herself . It ’s put her on a darker way of life that has indeed led to her distancing herself from her close friends — a composition that would ’ve made common sense given how this episode focuses on issues of genial health and societal outreach . But here , removed far from that , and even from the shocking revelations of “ Fugitive of the Judoon , ” to act off the Doctor ’s social awkwardness not even as a joke , but just this seemingly random number of ignorance , without knowing if there ’ll be ramifications for it in their relationship down the line , was incredibly grim , and unsatisfying .

This sequence also took this season ’s wider desire to reconnect with Doctor Who ’s past with perhaps some of the most deepcut reference yet : Zellin and Rakaya directly call out fellow immortals like the Eternals ( not theMarvel folk music , the wash from the Fifth Doctor floor “ Enlightenment , ” who passed their never-ending beingness participate in weird space - gravy boat slipstream with another subspecies we ’re about to mention ) and the Guardians of Time , another classic - Who duo of mysterious entities , the Black and White Guardians , who played games with the Doctor multiple fourth dimension — most famously in the arc of season 16 , which revolved around the Fourth Doctor gathering the fragment of the Key to Time . Even the Celestial Toymaker , from the first Doctor series of the same name , got a shoutout !

For all my complaint about how Doctor Who is misuse its current associate do up , this episode seems to to a great extent hint that one potential solution of trimming the number down . It ’s not just Yaz who ’s been handed seemingly all the “ impend tragic exit ” indicators so far this time of year , now Ryan is seemingly mull over his exit from the TARDIS life . Could we be down two companions by the season ’s penny-pinching ?

Image: BBC