And now, have watched the new eps of Who. Really irritated that I spoiled myself by looking up the adorable secret agent on IMDB halfway through the first ep.

I enjoyed these two eps a lot. Dewan was fabulous and the way they revealed the relationships between the various antagonists and that who was REALLY in charge kept changing. Looking forward to how what happened to Gallifrey will play out this season.

I kinda don't care about Gallifrey? I mean, it was presumably gone back when we met 9, and I didn't really come to grips with it really being tucked away in a pocket universe or whatever when 12 got back to it (although that whole thing was pretty great) so now I don't have much in the way of reaction. Which doesn't seem right.

Finally seen part 2! I rather liked it, it was fun. The Doctor actually had an impact on this one Wouldn't fault the choice of historical figures (though farewelling a woman you know will die the next year in a concentration camp with "Good luck!" is maybe not the right note). After episode one, I had two main concerns. The Master was too much of a retread, and they didn't really lean into the James Bond theme enough. I do feel, if not entirely good about these issues, at least somewhat better.

I liked the Master better this week. Not so much in the early ep, when he was mostly a walking anger management ad, but as he was put more on the back foot he became more interesting. Iespecially liked how he broke the news about Gallifrey to the Doctor (both times) - for someone who started with insisting the Doctor have the good grace to stay dead when he kills her, there was something rather intimate in his "there are things you need to know" messages.

Oh! Also, a little character note. The Master is obviously a supremely arrogant character; from his very first story, one key manner in which this manifests is that he never really thinks his alliances through. (His first adventure is Terror of the Autons, where he helps the Nestene Consciousness invade Earth. Just as they're about to do so (via radio telescope), the Doctor persuades him that once in control the Nestene will just kill him off too, and he immediately switches sides.) He's misapprehended, been betrayed by and/or been unable to control his allies over and over again (I count five times just in Delgado's eight adventures). I liked seeing this aspect of his character getting some play again.

That reminds me, the aliens. Having now learned more about them, I actually think they should have been the Vardans. These villains are a bit obscure. They appeared in the Fourth Doctor adventure, The Invasion of Time. In it, the Doctor agrees to act as the Vardans' agent to facilitate their invasion of Gallifrey. Tom Baker clearly has a good time playing evil for two episodes, but sadly that's about all that the adventure has going for it. It's one of the worst of Tom Baker's tenure. To make it a six-parter, they stretched it out with a couple of utterly dull filler eps of the Sontarans invading too. And it's Leela's last ep and her send-off is terrible and she deserved so much better (she falls in love with Random Guy, apparently completely off-screen because there was no sign of it in anything televised.)

Anyway, the point about the Vardans (aside from their appearance, which once they materialise is hilariously boring) is that they were telepathic and could both monitor and travel along communication signals. That would fit pretty nicely with this adventure's theme, not to mention their own appearance, mode of travel and home dimension.

On the theme, that improved too. I mean it felt even less like a spy adventure, but they did throw in ludicrous Bond-like gadgets and an actual historical spy. More importantly, Barton's Big Villain speech did actually lean into the surveillance and privacy conflict that his company seemed built for. It's not a greatly profound statement - Rise of the Cybermen was making much the same point 14 years ago - but points for style.

So this one racked up some decent entertainment. And next week's ep was written by Ed Hime, who did my favourite ep from last year, so touch wood, this season could just be pretty decent. (In particular, the fact that this is Chibnall's last writing credit until the finale gives me some optimism.) I'll do a write-up about my concerns in a while.

I remembered the Doctor and Leela on Gallifrey running into some Time Lords who had abandoned the city and were living in more or less barbarity (back to the earth sort of, without the crunchy granola implications) and she found them more compatible than the city people.

I remembered the Doctor and Leela on Gallifrey running into some Time Lords who had abandoned the city and were living in more or less barbarity (back to the earth sort of, without the crunchy granola implications) and she found them more compatible than the city people.

Yep, that's this adventure. The Doctor exiles Leela while he's still acting evil. She comes across the Shebogans, who live outside the city (at least some of them by choice), and pretty much becomes their queen. (She doesn't go sweet on a Shebogan but a city guard.)

I keep reading Shebogans as Sheboygan (a city in Wisconsin) and it's really confusing.

From what I remember, they'd have been dressed for the weather in either location.

Following my previous post, Chibnall has carried something over from last year, namely the dubious moral sense.

To clear the brush first: destroying Gallifrey... I like that there's something in the story arc slot, but I'm not keen on this particular choice. We've already done "Gallifrey is gone!", and it was more interesting when the Doctor had done it. Gallifrey hasn't really been back long enough to make this as big as it should be. (Oh, and it was no longer in a pocket dimension; Hell Bent revealed it now to be parked at the end of the universe. For what that's worth.) Still, I like them having something big to build the season round (big step up from Tim Shaw), and it gave Jodie Whittaker some slightly more emotionally complex material to work with (I'm thinking particularly of her last scene with the companions).

A little trivia: we first saw Gallifrey at the end of The War Games, the Second Doctor's last adventure. But we didn't learn its name until the Third Doctor's last season, in The Time Warrior. (It was originally supposed to be Galfrey.)

Back to the morality. I... am not a fan of the Doctor defeating the Master by weaponising racists. And she made a point of noting that he was going to fall afoul of their notions of racial purity. I would prefer a Doctor that is willing to fire guns and eschews firing white supremacists. (The gun stance remains incoherent, noting that she condemned steampunk guns and threw a grenade in virtually the same breath.)

The Guardian has been tracking this too, and saw fit to publish an article under the mildly hilarious title, "Doctor Who Is More Offensive Than Ever". That... is a bold call, given the show's history; but it has a point. [link]

One could certainly argue that the show has less sense of perspective than ever, by which I refer to the Doctor saying that impersonating a German soldier (German, not Nazi) was "a new low", even for the Master. I'm pretty sure his plot in The Sound of Drums, Frontier in Space, The Deadly Assassin, or indeed Logopolis would beat it. (Hell, if it's just fashion choices, there's The Keeper of Traken, where he kills the father of one of the Doctor's companions and starts wearing his body like a skinsuit.)

The last thing that stood out to me was the return of the mind-wipe. The Tenth Doctor of course used it on Donna in Journey's End, controversially as it was against her wishes.The Twelfth Doctor intended to use it on Clara in Hell Bent; at that point, the show emphatically treated it as a violation. Indeed, hard not to read it as a direct criticism of the previous era. I'm not exactly saying Chibnall made the wrong call to have her doing it again - there are different circumstances on which one can argue the point - but I'd have liked some recognition that it engaged a fraught issue from the show's past.

Still. This was fun, and reasonably assured in a way that the show often missed last season. Fingers crossed for next week.

Stan Kirsch who played Richie Ryan on Highlander died