I liked Demons of the Punjab. Nicely personal.

Yes, I really quite liked that one. Probably my favourite of the season so far. (The other contender, for all that I don't think it's something Doctor Who can really do successfully, is Rosa. Which at this moment I mostly fault for not having Doug Judy serenading her. It would make as much sense as the time travelling Nazi, and be more enjoyable.) It's not perfect - in particular, apparently the Doctor missed Sadhu's freakin' GUN SHOT WOUND when autopsying him - but as an emotional dramatisation it worked well. (Not unrelated - one of the biggest emotional gut punches I've ever got from popular entertainment was the film Gandhi.) It may be a concern that my favourite eps are the ones not written by the showrunner.

We're now more than halfway through this season, and we've yet to have a single dead baddie. At this point I have to assume it's deliberate; not sure what the thinking is, but it's definitely a thing. Not that I'm baying for blood, but so far the Thirteenth Doctor may be the most ineffectual incarnation since the Fifth.

Final thing, about history. The aliens in this ep were almost entirely superfluous. Which I have no problem with, and (on the subject of things Doctor Who can do) I'd really like to see them lose the conviction that every ep has to have an alien or time traveller or such like. When Doctor Who began, it had twin mandates to educate kids about science and history. That didn't last long, but the pure historical adventure (where, like this, success for the crew is determined by whether they escape unscathed and without messing anything up) was a staple for the First Doctor - about a third of his adventures fit this bill. (One other was a historical but with a sci-fi villain thrown in as a plot twist - and it could be a plot twist because it hadn't been a thing in any of the previous historicals.)

The historical fell off the radar thereafter, and though there were occasional forays into Earth's past, they always had some alien menace to deal with. (The mission generally changed from escaping with their lives to protecting the past.) I think that's a shame - it's unnecessarily restrictive. (Plus, the Beeb can knock out good period drama in its sleep.) I'm thinking that's especially the case for Chibnall's tenure. A pure historical with some good emotional beats to explore feels like it's more in his wheelhouse.

Another observation concerning the historical. Doctor Who's fourth adventure, Marco Polo, went to China. Its sixth went to Mexico. In 1967 the Second Doctor had an adventure set in Tibet. That was the last time Doctor Who ever used a non-Western historical setting - until now. Eleven Doctors, 33 seasons, 51 years. One might suggest it's long overdue.

I would forgive a lot for Doug Judy

ETA thanks for providing the show-historical context - so interesting to this pretty casual fan

ETA thanks for providing the show-historical context - so interesting to this pretty casual fan

My pleasure! I am always happy to geek out about DW.

I have always had suspicion - not backed by evidence - that the early DW took advantage of the time and space travel to reuse old sets from whatever else was filming. BBC drama set in ancient Rome? DW sets an episode in ancient Rome. DW could reuse any set - contemporary, SciFi Fantasy. Probably not true, but ...

I was cringing a bit at the beginning (not because of the ep itself, but I'm so sick of talking HQ2 at work I really wasn't in the mood for escapist fantasy about Amazon.com) but it turned out to be pretty great! I appreciated the plot turns from Evil Bosses to Evil Robots to Basically White Space Killmonger.

Not sure about the team getting jobs to get inside - surely the psychic paper could have made them OSHA inspectors or something? Like, getting into places to muck around is not typically something the Doctor worries about.

I have always had suspicion - not backed by evidence - that the early DW took advantage of the time and space travel to reuse old sets from whatever else was filming. BBC drama set in ancient Rome? DW sets an episode in ancient Rome. DW could reuse any set - contemporary, SciFi Fantasy. Probably not true, but …

Ah, now there are some interesting stories behind this. DW certainly reused sets from other BBC shows - there's more than one occasion where they dressed up a spaceship prop or weaponry or such from Blake's 7 or some other sci fi show (and vice versa). And of course if they did a historical adventure, the Beeb does period drama in its sleep. All sorts of old sets and costumes lying around. (And with DW always having been produced on a shoestring, you take whatever savings you can.)

But not generally from shows on at the same time. There's one particularly instructive example: Terrance Dicks is a major figure in classic DW. He was script editor for over five years, and all the way through the Third Doctor's tenure. All the old adventures were also put into novel form, and Uncle Tewwance (as he's affectionately known) wrote more of them than anyone else. Aside from his script editor duties, he also wrote or co-wrote seven adventures. I'll mention three. He wrote Tom Baker's first adventure, Robot, after claiming to the new script editor (Robert Holmes) that it was a tradition to commission the outgoing script editor to do the next story. (That happened seven times; maybe he did make it a tradition.) He also wrote a Frankenstein pastiche for Holmes, The Brain of Morbius, and then promptly went on holiday. Holmes wasn't happy with it - too sci-fi, not enough Gothic horror - and did a big rewrite. When Dicks got back he was outraged and demanded his name be taken off and replaced with "some bland pseudonym". Holmes put it out under the name "Robin Bland".

He did one more story for Holmes, which is germane to this discussion. As noted, Holmes was into doing Gothic horror pastiches, so it was only a matter of time that he'd get to vampires. He commissioned Dicks for the story, titled the Vampire Mutations. It was set to start the 1977 season.

And was promptly shelved. Dicks hastily wrote a replacement, The Horror of Fang Rock - a claustrophobic scarefest set in a lighthouse. (No one could turn out a script under pressure like Uncle Tewwance. He's been described as "the most magnificently efficient hack on the planet", thoroughly intended as a compliment.) The reason? Because the Beeb had unveiled a high-profile piece of event television - an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. And the serious heads in Drama flatly refused to allow Doctor Who to do a vampire story at the same time. As far as they were concerned, that would make it look like DW was taking the piss. So the space vampires were shelved for three years, eventually seeing the light of day three years later under a new script editor, and with (IMO) the vastly superior title, State of Decay.

So while Doctor Who could use old props, sets and costumes, it didn't make a habit of mirroring the Beeb's current roster. DW was never really a kid's show (it was a family show), but nonetheless it faced a certain amount of snobbishness from Auntie's other nooks. If it got too close, then you could expect a turf skirmish at least.

But reusing old sets and things is fine, and I do have a favourite. There's a Fifth Doctor adventure, Snakedance. It's the first TV role for a very young Martin Clunes (now better known for Men Behaving Badly and Doc Martin). Check out this pic quickly, both for the shiny set and for what Clunes is wearing (seriously, check out what he's wearing): [link]

One wonders, whence was this set unearthed? The Tomorrow Children, perhaps? Space 1999? A futuristic production of Jane Austen? No. It was recycled from when the UK hosted the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest.

Martin Clunes also popped up regularly in "Jeeves and Wooster." It's weird to watch other shows and think, "OMG, it's Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps! Toodle-pip, old chap!"

Martin Clunes also popped up regularly in "Jeeves and Wooster." It's weird to watch other shows and think, "OMG, it's Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps! Toodle-pip, old chap!"

As far as I'm concerned all British actors fall into one of two categories: "I remember you from that Doctor Who adventure!" and "Never mind, they'll get to you eventually".

I know, so far behind, but I just finally started the current season of Doctor Who. The episode is kinda spooky. I like it so far! (I never worry about being spoiled because by the time I get to watch I have forgotten what you had to say)

I just saw Martin Clunes in an old ep of Inspector Morse, along with Anna Massey. And Clunes was also in Shakepeare in Love.