Doctor Who is back again on Saturday nights with “Lux”, again penned by showrunner Russell T Davies. Like the second outing of the last season, it sees the TARDIS crew land on Earth in the mid-20th century. This time, though, the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) finds himself travelling with the reluctant Belinda (Varada Sethu). In their first proper adventure, the Doctor and Belinda arrive in Miami in 1952, a lovely time for an outing.
However, there’s a dangerous cartoon lurking in the shadows. Waiting in the wings is a disturbed projectionist. Within the screen is an animated world beyond terror that may hold the key to everything. Can the Doctor bring his reluctant companion onside enough to save the world from an evil lurking within an old cinema?
WARNING – Spoilers below for Doctor Who “Lux”
The Movie Cinema
The TARDIS arrives in 1952 thanks to a “vindicator” device created by the Doctor to bring Belinda back home to 2025. Like most all piloting efforts, it fell short by a good chunk. Instead of the modern day, the pair arrive in the early 1950s at a movie theatre. It’s playing a non-existent Rock Hudson movie, whose title does the thing that everyone predicted it would from the beginning. I do think they handled discussions of Hudson’s sexuality and illness quite well, which I did enjoy.
Also not handled terribly was the episode’s approach to the racism of the era. A solid piece of social commentary that’s the focus of all of a scene. The diner scene, while not explicitly hostile, still had a nice bit of tension about it as a result. While I’ll hold my tongue in the hopes that somebody more qualified than myself will speak on this, I thought it was just fine. I will admit, I’m surprised it wasn’t more of a presence in the episode, feeling quite ignored for the bulk of the runtime.
All of this leads the Doctor and Belinda to the Palazzo cinema, and the mysterious projectionist within. This is the tragically underused Reginald Pye (Linus Roache), trying to keep the evil Lux at bay. Who’s such a nothing character. Although quite what brought Lux (Alan Cumming) into the world is a little vague. Moonlight? A cartoon? Surely not Rock Hudson or the fake movie at the start? There’s a vagueness there I’m not so sure I like. But once Lux is on the scene, it’s where the episode really gets moving.
Secret Keeping
The animated segment from the trailer isn’t quite what I expected. Instead of a brief medium switch, their escape hinges on the Doctor and Belinda opening up to one another. It leads to an airing of all the little insecurities keeping them distant from one another. But it also shifts the series back to a Doctor and ever-trusting assistant status quo. She trusts him implicitly, she knows he’s the “last of the time lords”. A line which gives the Doctor more ‘depth’, and story we’ve done so many times now. The idea of doing it again is just exhausting.
Meanwhile, the more the characters open up to one another, the more depth they gain, the weirder the animation looks. It’s a problem that plagues the more 3-D Lux at the end of the episode as well. This era has an obsession with a lot of fancy visual effects, and the 2-D animation parts of this episode work well. But throwing money at big CGI sequences doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s good or better. The episode’s climax genuinely just ends up looking bizarre.
Meanwhile the Doctor and Belinda moving through a film reel, setting it on fire, breaking through the frame. It’s visually fun and playing into the film medium nicely. The chemistry between them is as gorgeous as it was last week. But due to the removal of Belinda’s reluctance, the team loses the spark that made them unique. I do hope that their relationship continues to be challenged rather than this being the big turning point, because it happened really early in the season.
The Fourth Wall
The Doctor meeting Doctor Who fans feels like a story thread from a meta anniversary story. Instead, it’s happening in a regular episode of the show, and I’m supposed to be laughing and enjoying it. Perhaps there’s a bitter Classic Who fan inside of me, but this was a whole new level of silly. It didn’t feel real, and to be fair it wasn’t, it was just another layer of Lux’s trap.
But these are still people who recognise the Doctor as a TV character. Complete with blu-rays and DVDs adorning shelves, that are out of order. An old-school UNIT logo, a long scarf, a K-9 mug, and a Telos Cybermen shirt. Except their favourite episode is “Blink”, a fine piece of television, but far from most people’s favourite. Opportunities abounded for obscure classic references, a missing episodes joke. Instead, it made a simplistic caricature of Doctor Who fans that was feeble and simplistic.
The only part of it that felt real was watching Fifteen desperately pitch his own adventures only to be almost rebuked by the fans. They like “Blink”, and the days of Davies’ first era are over. I say this as someone who enjoyed the last season, too. It was just sad. What we’re left with is a show, desperate to be loved, resorting to cheap in-jokes and fourth wall breaks that end up alienating the people they’re trying to delight.
Mr Ring-a-Ding
The final showdown is so silly. Strung up in an almost Christ-like way, the Doctor ends up freeing Lux. Except Lux going outside and seeing light was his own undoing. Feeding off all the light in the universe causes him to experience a sort of ego death. So basically, as soon as he got beyond the cinema, he wasn’t going to pose any kind of threat. It’s a cheap ending that almost devalues the episode as a whole.
It also doesn’t help to build Lux up as a threat when he’s part of the same Pantheon the series explored last season. Sutekh (Gabriel Woolf) was the god of death, the father of all, the one who waits. Yet the god of light is supposed to be a threat of note? Lux’s minimal screentime and the lack of a discernible Harbinger don’t help either. While I adored Cumming’s performance, there was too little of it to really make it memorable. I think he ended up making a bigger impact as King James in “The Witchfinders”.
The episode also closes with what is one of the most obvious teases in the show’s history. Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson) appears in the 50s, breaking the fourth wall, and calling the TARDIS a “good show” that’s doomed to end on May 24. So of course “Wish World”, which airs on that date, is going to be full of revelations about her identity and her grand evil plans. Given the emphasis on the Doctor again being the “last of the time lords”, I really wouldn’t be surprised if she’s secretly a Time Lord somehow.
Conclusion
“Lux” was an interesting affair. On one hand, a lot of online buzz seems to be positive. But on the other, it’s a near-immediate restoration of the Doctor and Companion dynamic that has plagued the series’ revival. For every scene-stealing Alan Cumming line, there was an attempt at meta fan commentary that felt more insulting than fun. I’m not going to say it’s the worst episode of Doctor Who ever, that’s hyperbole for keyboard warriors in time to come. After all, I did enjoy a good chunk of this, the animation was gorgeous.
Alas, what “Lux” is, is an episode of my favourite show that left me feeling a little embarrassed to be a fan. With a villain that felt underdeveloped and non-threatening, and some truly pathetic fan service. For an episode about films, it’s less of a blockbuster and more of a bargain bin movie on clearance. I do hope that “The Well”, co-written by Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall can bring the series’ quality back up a bit.
Doctor Who airs weekly on Saturdays, dropping on BBC iPlayer at 8 am and airing on BBC One later in the evening. Internationally, the series streams on Disney+ (where available), with episodes released simultaneously with their release on iPlayer. For more reviews, news, lore, and more from all your favourite franchises, follow Nerdgazm on social media!
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