Doctor Who Season 2, Episode 2 Review – “Lux”

This reappraisal contains afloat spoilers for Doctor Who Season 2, Episode 2, “Lux”.

Following a disappointing play premiere, this week’s Doctor Who is simply a meticulously crafted descent into a retro-tinged nightmare, wherever daring storytelling collides with a pervasive, unsettling atmosphere. The TARDIS doesn't get successful the expected sun-drenched glamour of 1952 Miami, but alternatively successful its subtly sinister twilight. It’s a play mounting rendered successful immaculate detail: pastel hues, sharply tailored costumes, and a lovingly recreated portion of mid-century Americana. Drawn into a enigma surrounding 15 missing patrons astatine a once-bustling representation house, what begins with echoes of a modular Doctor Who caper, adjacent cheekily evoking Scooby-Doo, rapidly spirals into thing acold alien and much ambitious.

That ambition is astir profoundly realized successful the enactment of manager Amanda Brotchie and animators Framestore, whose publication to this occurrence is fantastic. With good finesse, they’ve managed to transmission the kinetic vigor and whimsical charm of the Fleischer Studios' animated heyday, crafting an unsettling operation of colorful whimsy and insidious beingness successful the signifier of Mr. Ring-a-Ding. Masterfully embodied by Alan Cumming, who delivers a tour-de-force vocal performance, the villain feels similar he's stepped straight retired of a 1930s cartoon reel, not conscionable successful style, but successful physics, posture, and that off-putting grin. It’s classical rubber-hose animation, brought to beingness and warped conscionable capable to consciousness wrong, possessed, and dancing to a silent, unsettling rhythm, tactically amplified by Murray Gold’s wonderfully creaky and classically Hitchcockian score.

If there’s a bum enactment to this, it’s the uncover that Mr. Ring-a-Ding is Lux, different all-seeing, all-knowing cosmic deity – a quality benignant Doctor Who is surely blameworthy of overindulging successful these days. It’s hardly a fatal flaw, and the nightmarishly animated devil inactive manages to exert a captivating power implicit the episode. Moreover, the uncover lends to a fitting extremity for the villain, with the deity of airy released to articulation the celestial tapestry supra america successful a amazingly poetic send-off. But fingers crossed we don’t spot different one-off fantastical deity successful disguise anytime soon.

The animated brilliance of “Lux” extends beyond Mr. Ring-a-Ding. Amid the episode’s chaos, the Doctor and Belinda are unexpectedly thrust into a cartoon reality, a crook successful the communicative that transcends specified gimmickry. The resulting series is simply a delightfully bizarre and frenetic experience, brimming with quippy puns and one-liners delivered with the gait and precision of the champion aboriginal Simpsons episodes. After the pun-laden stumbles of the play opener, it’s a alleviation to spot Russell T Davies wield his wordplay with existent purpose: Not conscionable twisting phrases for plot’s sake, but crafting lines that transportation rhythm, wit, and a astonishing magnitude of heart. Crucially, the inherent absurdity of the series ne'er undermines the episode's sincerity, maintains tension, and exhibits a pacing that is atypical of Doctor Who, a amusement often constrained by its choky runtime. Against each odds, it not lone works, but ends earlier it wears retired its welcome.

That goes treble for the episode's adjacent bolder swing: a gleefully clichéd fourth-wall interruption wherever the Doctor and Belinda clang consecutive done a tv surface into a modern-day surviving room, startling a acceptable of bewildered Doctor Who fans mid-episode. With the fans decked retired successful stereotypical Who-dress-up – Tom Baker's scarf, Matt Smith's fez – it does travel disconnected arsenic a spot excessively connected the chemoreceptor astatine first. However, the uncover of Mr. Ring-a-Ding's engagement and the information that it’s really part of the illusion swiftly recontextualizes the scene. As a result, it feels a batch much affectionate without pandering, folding fandom into the fiction, and smartly avoiding immoderate strained winks oregon jabs. To my surprise, the full detour ends up doing much than simply breaking the 4th wall; it starts to toy, with existent intent, astatine the boundaries betwixt fabrication and reality, going truthful acold arsenic to brazenly admit the online leaks that spoiled the scene’s precise existence. It caught maine disconnected defender successful a mode the amusement seldom does, and I inactive haven’t rather decided whether it’s genius oregon not.

Yet, beneath each the meta references and structural flair, “Lux” is yet anchored by a almighty affectional halfway that pulses passim the episode. While immoderate of the dialog inactive feels a small janky oregon rushed successful places, and the supporting formed remains one-note – much functional than fleshed retired – the episode’s simple, chaotic halfway inactive shines. Plus, immoderate shortcomings connected the periphery are rapidly eclipsed by the leads, who marque the occurrence consciousness similar a signifier built conscionable for them. Ncuti Gatwa delivers yet different standout show arsenic the Doctor, cautiously channeling the mischief of the character’s past incarnations with the warmth and gravitas of a silver-age superhero. There’s existent condemnation successful his quieter moments, similar promises to a grieving parent and reflections connected however his humble constabulary container gives radical hope. It each lands similar a connection of intent for Doctor Who itself. Gatwa’s scenes with Varada Sethu aren't drowned retired by exposition but resonate with a dynamic bushed shared by equals. I besides particularly emotion that Belinda being a caregiver isn’t treated arsenic a throwaway backstory – it’s embedded successful her each instinct arsenic a character, shaping however she operates. (It’s already propping up immoderate large interactions with the Doctor.) The information that she’s lone been successful the TARDIS for 2 weeks is astonishing. She someway already feels foundational.

Score: 9/10

Verdict: