Doctor Who: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

Doctor: 'Come on, fam.'

As with last week's episode, this felt like a story plump with ideas, few of which managed to gain traction. The return of Tzim-Sha wasn't entirely unwelcome, but let's be honest: seeing him again was as surprising as seeing Graham and Ryan's fist-bump. Traditionally, the season finale is a time for spectacle, grandiose storytelling, and the return of epic foes. Instead, we got a bloke with a face made of teeth getting shot in the foot.

To be fair, Tzim-Sha's story was okay. His megalomaniac streak made a modicum of sense bearing in mind the Stenza's warrior mindset, and his plan to shrink planets to the size of satsumas whilst manipulating the easily-fooled Ux, was a moderately entertaining—if outrageously over the top—punishment for the Doctor pissing him off. Whether you found his defeat too easy, or the setting up of his possible return too horrific to contemplate, will likely depend upon how satisfied you were with the return of the Stenza. Were they a finale-worthy foe? Do they deserve to be uttered in the same breathe as the Silence, the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Weeping Angels?

Err... not really, no. They're an average villain, lacking the necessary pedigree to pull off a surprise return. I've also struggled to enjoy the simplistic, often info-dumpy way the stories have been presented this season: more specifically, the Chris Chibnall penned episodes. Which is a worry, as we usually rely on the showrunner to set the season tone, harmonise the third-party scripts, and be generally kick-ass. Frustratingly, the only ass that should be kicked this season, is Chibnall's. I don't think it controversial to say that his offerings this year have been subpar: his characterisation of the Doctor has been poor, his dialogue has been atrocious, his character development has been average, and his stories have been boring. And sadly, virtually all of these weaknesses were on display tonight.

As the season's progressed, it's become exponentially harder to gauge the show's moral message. We've had instances where the Doctor's said one thing (killing stuff is bad!), and then gone on to do the exact opposite (I'm killing stuff!), and tonight probably explained why in the feeblest way imaginable: the Doctor sometimes changes her mind. Which was probably meant to come across as quirky and endearing, but instead offered up a troubling insight into how the show deals with internal inconsistency. The logic chain tonight ran something like this: the Doctor handed out grenades; Ryan asked what happened to her 'no weapons' policy; the Doctor explained that the bombs were for replaceable infrastructure only; Ryan pointed out that this didn't make sense as she'd recently forbade him to take out sniper bots; which culminated in the Doctor admitting that her rules are often subject to change, and ended in her asking him to never mention them again.

So what's happening here? Well, to the cynical observer it looks suspiciously like a teaching point in 'The Ghost Monument' (guns are bad) hobbled the narrative needs of tonight's story, necessitating Chibnall pull some clumsy sleight of hand (which none of the characters cared to question), and thus everyone got to blow shit up. Which under normal circumstances, although a little underhanded, would be nothing to lose sleep over. Except, with the show's renewed commitment to teaching its audience, it really does matter. If you want to teach kids about ethics, your take-home message should never be to just thoughtlessly obey rules. It was Ryan questioning the rules that showed them to be defective, but because the purpose of the dialogue was to sidestep an earlier plot-point rather than explain why the Doctor was wrong, there was no follow-through.

Chibnall's take on faith was similarly half-baked. I'm not religious, so I have no horse in this race whatsoever, but the Ux's definition of faith was just dumb. Andinio's the-more-we-learn-the-less-we-know aphorism, whilst clearly riffing off Socrates' most famous quote, seemed to miss the point entirely: emphasising gullibility at the expense of humility. Which was a real pity as I thought the Ux showed real potential, and an episode focused on dimensional engineering would've been fascinating. Instead, Chibnall chose to make the Ux look like incompetent idiots. I have no idea what his ultimate point was, but if it was that religious people are stupid, gullible, and shouldn't be let out of the house, then the message came through loud and clear.

Ryan fist-bumping Graham, although presumably there as a resolution to their not-so-troubled relationship, felt woefully anticlimactic after last week's 'granddad' moment, and would've had far more impact had it happened then. Which pretty much sums up this season: an agglomeration of so-so stories, anaemic character beats, and emotional non-payoffs. Prior to this season airing I had severe reservations about Chibnall's Who, but never envisaged anything as bland as this. The finale pulled in 5.32 million viewers overnight—that's lower than Capaldi's last episode. The show can improve, but whether it will in 2020 and whether Chibnall's the man to do it, I have my doubts. For now, all we can do is wait and see which mysterious big-bad they bring back in the new year. If it's that fucking frog, I'm out of here.

Other Thoughts:

—I'm sorry, but Graham killing Tzim-Sha would in no way make him like a planet-killing murderer.

—I love precautions, I love Wellingtons, I love apple bobbing, I love the Kerblam man... I love talking utter shite.

—For a show seemingly proud of its own 'wokeness', did they really have to have a black man enslaved throughout, whilst a white woman justified his incarceration by appealing to faith? I'm not saying that a slavery subtext was Chibnall's intention, but it's a lot easier to read into the story than whatever the sub-text actually was. Assuming there even was one.

—I felt sure that once the Doctor and Yaz removed their neural enhancers, they'd end up fighting their own imagined demons to survive. Instead, they got small headaches.

—Everyone who thought Graham would die in the last episode: your confidence in Chibnall's ability to deliver drama was woefully misplaced.

—So the Timeless Child reference earlier in the season went absolutely nowhere?

—Another pointless week of existing for Yaz.

Quotes:

Doctor: 'You look in a bad way. Whereas, I've got a new coat. What do you think?'

Doctor: 'Universe, provide for me. I'm working really hard to keep you together right now.'

Graham: 'Yippy kai yay, robots!'