The Cutprice Guignol

Yes, I’ve finally given in and started adding episode titles to these reviews instead of just my silly TARDIS acronyms. Send complaints on a postcard directly to my cat’s litter box. Anyway! On with the review.

This episode, The Story and the Engine, sees the Doctor heading to his favourite barbershop in Laos, Nigeria (a setting the show made great use of in terms of cinematography and visual style), only to find that a malevolent entity seems to have commanded control of the establishment for his own less-than-cheerful purposes.

Firstly and most foremostly: hurrah, Jo Martin! I am the number one Fugitive Doctor fan in the known universe, and I’m sure you can only imagine the holler of excitement that came out of my mouth when we caught a glimpse of her here. When it comes to the Timeless Child plot, the many lives the Doctor has led that we don’t know about, this is the implementation of it I like most – the Doctor stumbling into remnants of his past lives and having to contend with the harm or pain he’s left behind. Much as I would have loved more of Martin in this episode, it was really great to see this era contending with some of the less-popular aspects of Chris Chibnall run, many of which I feel have gotten a worse rap than they deserve. That said – the Space Babies reference? There are some things we need to leave dead, Russel.

As for the rest of this episode – look, if ever a story needed a two-parter, it was this one. Inua Ellams, the writer of The Story and the Engine, has so much to contend with in terms of plot and ideas that things swiftly start to get quite cluttered. The central idea, of some cosmic spaceship powered by stories, was more than enough to build this episode around and to allow space to explore the themes Ellams focused on, but instead, we get story details piling up on top of each other faster than we’ve got a chance to sift through them. Even with a really strong supporting cast (Ariyon Bakare as the Barber in particular was a killer presence, imposing without having to do too much), there just isn’t room in less than fifty minutes for all of these concepts to breathe. The episode also really suffered for having to include some Big Space Beastie in the form of the spider upon which the barbershop was situated – sure, it was a cool visual (not as cool as the animated storytelling sequences, but I digress), but it felt more in service to the next-week-on teaser than the story itself.

With that said, I did generally enjoy how Ellams took on the story about storytelling – it’s not an entirely new concept for Doctor Who by a long shot (and even relies on a similar ending to Rings of Akhaten, with the sheer enormity of the Doctor’s life and stories impacting the villain), but it’s one that, as a writer myself, will always hit home. I loved the way this story explored comparative mythology and folklore across various cultures, and the subtle commentary on the use of AI in stories (a person gathering tales from other people to craft a web of their own) was well-worked in without being intrusive. It was a slightly odd choice to have an episode so heavily focused on gods that had very little to do with the other pantheon villains who have made up so much of the rogue’s gallery for this Doctor’s run, but hey, at least we’re getting a different flavour of the divine, you know?

This was also a really strong episode for Ncuti Gatwa, getting to fall into a very classic Doctor role as he unravels the mystery at the heart of the story and sets about putting it right. Gatwa commanded this episode from top to bottom, confident and self-directing, throwaway comments about inspiring Hemingway to write his famous six-word short story – add to that the episode’s earnest depiction of the Doctor’s relationship with Nigerian culture, and it was one of the richer outings for this version of the character, even if he did have to wade through a lot of exposition to get to it.

Overall, The Story and the Engine is a solid if frustrating episode of the show – there are a handful of really brilliant ideas here that would have been served so much better by a bit more time and space (heh), but what we’re left with is still a pretty satisfying entry into this solid season as a whole. Where do you stand on this episode? Let me know in the comments below!

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(header image via CultBox)