C+Q - Kerblam! (2018)

I was obsessed with the preview clip for this episode. Kerblam!'s opening TARDIS scene is one of a few moments where Series 11 approaches Hartnellian levels of cozy familiarity, and it's a mood this TARDIS team is really well suited for. If there's a theme for Series 11, I suppose it's best summed up by Graham in Resolution: "Family isn't just about DNA, or a name. It's about what you do". In brief moments like the start of Kerblam!, these four feel like a tightly-knit family unit, and it's a great feeling to tune into once a week and relax with for 50 minutes. If the Whittaker era taps into this more often, it might even approach a worthwhile substitute for the lack of complicated mysteries (although not by much and I still would like a return to complicated mysteries, thanks x). Unfortunately, this fun cozy vibe fades for me and Kerblam! ends up being another meh episode. I keep coming back to the whole 'there are only 10 episodes in Series 11' thing, but honestly I don't feel fed by this series. There are too few episodes and too many meh ones among those few that it just doesn't make a complete meal. I feel like I'm still waiting for the Thirteenth Doctor, Ryan, Graham, and Yaz to start.

What I really wanted out of Series 11 was at least one weird story. Not 'weird' in the sense of It Takes You Away and its incredible frog universe, I mean 'weird' in the sense of The Rings of Akhaten and its Mos Eisley marketplace populated by whatever alien designs the costume department had lying around that day. I wanted an episode to break out of the well-defined 'spaceship corridors', 'historical drama', 'modern Earth' standards and do something consciously wacky. Just let Doctor Who go wild for a week. I really thought I was going to get that here, but I was disappointed when the weirdness of Amazon IN SPAAAAACE!!! just became a regular warehouse job. What weird aliens are buying things from Space Amazon? What crazy products do Space Amazon stock? I wanted them to Rick and Morty Interdimensional Cable Episode the shit out of this premise. Unfortunately, there's nothing in Doctor Who Series 11 that even comes close to being as weird and imaginative as this amazing promotional image:

This episode has a lot of fun stuff in it, like exploding bubble wrap and the delivery robots and the way Segun Akinola's score used the Kerblam! corporate jingle as a big threatening Here Come The Baddies motif when the delivery robot army is revealed. What gets in the way of me really loving it though is a lot of meh stuff. It feels like Jodie Whittaker is getting saddled with paragraph upon paragraph of declarative exposition that she's always forced to deliver breathlessly in order to keep up the momentum during key action moments. I say 'feels like' because I can't tell if she's getting more exposition than usual. The Doctor has always been an exposition-heavy role given that they're the only person in the room who knows everything. Somehow it's as if Whittaker is getting more than usual, and a lot of that could be to do with the larger cast. With four regular cast members, the Doctor herself has less screen time this series, so rather than being allowed to emote she's mainly being deployed to explain stuff. Possibly. I don't have the number of minutes on screen or number of expository lines spoken on hand to compare or anything, this is just my impression from watching. I hope Series 12 allows Whittaker to dig deeper into the specifics of this character. And for god sake, let her say 'Time Lord'! At the very least, Kerblam! finally goes over 'the Doctor has two hearts' for the three new companions in a very vague way that doesn't confirm or deny whether they already knew, which is nice. At least we now know it's been covered.

So Kerblam! is just fine. It's okay, but comes really close to being something special. If nothing else, this episode reassures me that the main four are amazingly well cast and have the potential to gel and cohere together into a truly iconic TARDIS team if the material ever lets them. Their continued presence in the show is what's making me so excited for Series 12.