C+Q - Oxygen (2017)
We have [1] weeks to wait until Missy's next episode.
Finally. Here we fucking go. Doctor Who Series 10 is about to get good. I mean, it was already okay but the first four episodes aren't anything particularly memorable or different. And then this episode happened, and now the Doctor is blind. Wonderful. At last we're getting into some fun experimental areas that the show hasn't touched before. After five weeks, I feel like the show I love is finally back. The old RTD formula that Series 10 has adhered to rigidly up to this point has just been set on fire and thrown off a bridge. We're once again in uncharted territory.
Blinding the Doctor aside, this is a strong episode on its own. Nardole is finally part of the TARDIS crew and he's brilliant. He brings an alien perspective to things that helps to move the show away from contemporary Earth, like when he recognises the actor who voices the suits. Bill continues to be wonderful and I hope to god she stays on for Series 11. She's a nice change of pace from past companions and her teacher/pupil relationship with the Doctor isn't a dynamic the modern series has done before. And obviously Peter Capaldi is still one of if not the best actors ever to play the Doctor.
Jamie Mathieson once again turns in a script with an incredibly strong sense of premise and identity. This is a story about capitalist zombies in space, and everything from the set-up to the resolution is based firmly around that idea. Like Thin Ice and unlike Smile, the politics of this episode are coherent and are expressed clearly through narrative and character action. So focused on its central theme is this story that it deliberately bypasses an easy action sequence that circumstance basically hands Mathieson on a plate, instead choosing to keep us locked into the perspective of Bill who passes out and misses the fight completely. Clearly this is a story less concerned with the spectacle of space zombies than it is with what those space zombies represent (no matter how fun a good space zombie can be). The only change I'd make to this episode in terms of how the main message is handled is that the Doctor really should've blown up the spacestation at the end. Fuck the faceless corporation who allowed this to happen. If a fresh batch of workers are on their way, the Doctor should've destroyed the station to prevent them from meeting the same fate as the first lot. I know there's a scene at the end similar to the one in Thin Ice where the Doctor gives us a quick summary of what happens next in universal history and reassures us that there's a happy ending, but still.
If I were to criticise this episode further, I supposed it's a bit of a cop-out that Bill died and then wasn't actually dead, but to be fair it's not as if they were going to properly kill off the main companion in Episode 5. And to be fairer, at least Mathieson didn't pull a Knock Knock and reveal that everyone else could be brought back to life just as easily for a cheap happy ending. And to be even fairer still, any talk of this episode coping-out when it comes to long-term consequences can quite rightly be drowned out by the fact that Dr Who is now permanently blind. The most exciting thing about this is that it offers new challenges for the character without actually preventing him from saving the day. As made clear by the action sequence that we miss by being in Bill's shoes, Doctor Who isn't a show about action so much as it's about drama and discussion. The Doctor's blindness inhibits him physically but all he needs to win every week is his mind. It's a fun twist to have on the character that I hope lasts for a while and plays into his eventual regeneration into Hayley Atwell this Christmas.
Oxygen is a really strong episode filled with wonderful little moments, like the reference to the fluid link, or the universe "showing its true face", or breaths being a unit of distance. It's a lot darker and less fun that Mathieson's previous stories but there's still a spark of optimism and humour in there that makes this gritty space horror adventure undeniably a Doctor Who episode. Oxygen isn't about the gore or the jump scares or the fear factor, it's about the characters solving the problem at hand. Act 2 of Series 10 is off the great start.
But seriously, real talk: next week is gonna be fuckin AMAZING.
Next: Extremis