By Roy Mathur, on 2025-05-17, at 23:32:23 to 00:24:50 BST, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
Fifteenth Doctor: Ncuti Gatwa, Companion Belinda Chandra: Varada Sethu, Susan Foreman: Carole Ann Ford, The Rani: Archie Panjabi; prolific TV actress, geek cred. inc. Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Ryland Clark, Graham Norton as themselves, Kid: Freddie Fox; Slow Horses (Kadiff Kirwan guest stars too), writer: Juno Dawson; Torchwood, director: Ben A. Williams; Humans. Episode 6 of series 15 of New Who or season 2 on iPlayer and Disney+ (story 318), 1 x c.45 min, released iPlayer Sat 2025-05-17 08:00 or scheduled broadcast BBC1 19:10 and watched by me at c.09:50 sprawled on my sofa in the console room as potential buyers viewed our home.
The Doctor and Belinda arrive at the Interstellar Song Contest, hosted by a cryogenically defrosted Ryland, and decide to stay after calibrating the vindicator. Hellian terrorists deactivate the space station air shell and decompression sucks the audience and Doctor out. In the Doctor's mind, Susan wakes him and he uses a glitter cannon to propel himself back to the station. With the help of a survivor couple---a nurse and technician---he foils the plot to broadcast a deadly signal from the Delta Wave device, killing trillions watching as vengeance for the despoliation of their home world. The audience are rescued. Before the Doctor and Belinda leave, Graham Norton's computer avatar tells them Earth was destroyed on the exact day Belinda left. As the Doctor pilots the Tardis back to Earth, promising to return her and save the planet, the console room turns red, judders, and the doors explode. Back on the station, Mrs Flood is revived and bigenerates into the Rani.
My parents are fans of Eurovision, so after ABBA's 1974 and Bucks Fizz 1981 (featured) triumph, I stopped watching because it was too familiar. Now, I have to endure millennials splaining why it's so good. Get your own podcast, millenials.
The far future is still plagued by Ryland (surprisingly tall) and Graham Norton. Oh god. I watched the first few episodes of C4's Big Brother back in 2000, before immediately becoming bored and left it long before Ryland, whose evolving look freaks me out. That is unfortunate, as he seems genuinely charming.
The Doctor sees an older Susan in his mind. What does it mean? When will we see her again. I think she's alive and Ncuti's regeneration will see her again before the end of the season. If not, that is a tease too far, considering the upcoming hiatus.
Hard light holograms are ripped straight from Red Dwarf: Legion.
That bigeneration nonsense again, finally solves the fan question of Mrs Flood's identity. However, Flood was a poor Rani and didn't even have the good grace to disappear. At least the new Rani is actually Asian.
FX, props, and costumes were all okay. I found The Caves of Androzani-like robots intimidating. Unfortunately, Gold again exceeds himself, with comically berserk bombastic swells of music hammering the dialogue. I've probably said before that though I'm annoyed by Gold, I like the 15th Doctor's theme. That's more to do with the beautifully evocative video sequence of the Tardis flying through a white hole (or to opening of the time vortex or a wormhole or whatever the hell it is supposed to be).
The Interstellar Song Contest, coinciding with real-world Eurovision, featuring Susan Foreman, the Rani, a star-studded cast, and the Doctor showing his vicious side, something we only occasionally see (e.g. An Unearthly Child and The Christmas Invasion), felt too much a milestone finale. They even blew the bloody doors off! With two episodes still to go, how does New Who top that?