On the finish of Gatwa’s first season, it was laborious to shake the priority that the present was retreading sure features of the character’s emotional journey, with a return to portentous ‘Final of the Time Lords’ melancholy. Not solely would which have felt stale, but it surely wouldn’t actually make sense with Gatwa – the actor can actually do angst, however his portrayal of the Doctor is primarily outlined by a effervescent, irrepressible pleasure.
This episode manages to seek out the purpose the place the 2 approaches intersect, with the Doctor expressing his basic loneliness not via moping across the TARDIS and gravely intoning “There was a conflict”, however by throwing himself wholeheartedly into companionship and group, making associates with odd folks and listening to their tales. It feels new, while additionally being quintessentially Doctor, totally within the lineage of Tom Baker declaring “homo sapiens – what an ingenious, invincible species” again in 1975 (the Doctor’s tribute to Belinda’s on a regular basis heroism additionally feels of a chunk with Peter Capaldi’s “human progress isn’t measured by business, it’s measured by the worth you place on a life, an unimportant life, a life with out privilege”). And it provides “The Story & the Engine” some dramatic meat, permitting Gatwa to convincingly promote how betrayed he feels by Omo, and his later contrition at permitting that damage to get the higher of him.
The Lagos setting additionally helps the episode to really feel contemporary – and never simply visually talking. It might need felt like tourism prior to now, however there’s a actual specificity to how the town is portrayed and the tradition is baked into the story in a tangible means, from throwaway strains about folks not making appointments, to the actual function the barber store performs of their lives.
It’s value speaking right here about author Inua Ellams, who makes a robust impression together with his Doctor Who (*5*)debut. Born in Nigeria, Ellams is a extremely completed poet and playwright, which shines via within the episode, from the conceptually wealthy, magical realist bent of the story, via to the comparatively contained setting. It’s a companion piece of kinds to Ellams’ play Barber Store Chronicles(*5*), which weaved collectively tales from six barber retailers in six completely different international locations over the course of a day (actor Sule Remi, who performs Omo right here, additionally appeared in a Nationwide Theatre manufacturing of the play). In a 2020 Guardian interview, Ellams mentioned that “barber retailers, for British black males, are a secure, sacred place the place they’ll go to calm down, escape racism and discuss freely”, a potent and profoundly humanistic concept to discover in Doctor Who(*5*).
However removed from being a retread of his earlier work, Ellams makes the barber store integral to the story, turning it right into a weird, threatening setting, nearly TARDIS-like in its refusal to obey the legal guidelines of physics. It’s an enchanting inversion, taking this sanctuary the place males can freely share tales and twisting its constructive qualities into one thing extra unsettling. The idea of a ship powered by tales, with a mind inside a coronary heart at its core, propelled by a large spider via what Alan Moore would possibly name ‘Ideaspace’, is likely one of the most delightfully batshit premises we’ve had in Doctor Who(*5*), and the visuals are luxurious. From the design of the spider and the center mind engine, to the home windows that reply to the tales being instructed, all of it seems to be fantastic, and offers the episode its personal distinctive really feel.
As delightfully bananas – and resonant – as all these ideas are, the episode doesn’t all the time achieve grounding them. The stakes typically really feel a little bit summary, and past the easy-to-grasp concept that these trapped folks must go residence, it’s not completely clear how all these huge concepts coalesce right into a set of tangible penalties. The Barber is brilliantly performed by Ariyon Bakare, who finds many alternative shades to play in one of many extra advanced villains the sequence has had these days, however aside from being a charismatic and imposing presence, it’s not fully clear what menace he poses. We by no means get a way of what the implications could be for the boys in the event that they merely refused to take a seat within the chair and inform tales – the crimson mild and alarm are an efficient preliminary signifier of hazard, however the episode doesn’t develop the menace past that. We might nearly have accomplished with a sacrificial character as an instance the menace, although which may have made it tougher to redeem the Barber on the finish.