Story: Arachnids in the UK
Written By: Chris Chibnall
Length: 50 Minutes
Year: 2018
The Doctor gets her friends back home to Sheffield, as promised, but she finds it a bit difficult to say goodbye right away. She joins Yaz and Ryan for tea, as Graham heads home to face the emptiness of his home without Grace, and while at Yaz's flat...they run into a new problem (I know...shocking), this time it is big spiders. Events lead the TARDIS team to a yet to be opened hotel owned by a miserable American businessman played by Chris Noth from "Law & Order," and there they find that the big spiders are numerous and some are even larger than a human being.
As a simple monster of the week, it's an average episode. The
spiders are big and scary, but they aren't defeated with the most
interesting of climaxes. The businessman who longs to be President is a
pretty generic baddie, but Noth does play him with plenty of gusto. As
I've come to expect, I think our new TARDIS team is quite enjoyable to
watch. We get a bit more depth for Yaz this week, a tiny bit of
character building for Ryan, and some really lovely character stuff for
Graham.
Chibnall has been writing almost all of the episodes of the season so far, co-writing last week's with Malorie Blackman. I'm assuming much of the episode was written by her, and he punched it up for his long term season plans or something. But at any rate, he has had been a credited writer on everything this season, and while his stories aren't blowing me away with their originality, his character stuff has been top notch. I'm enjoying his episodes, and while I am looking forward to seeing some stories written by other writers (which will have to wait until after next week it seems), I think he has done a good job of reinventing the show over the first half of his first series as showrunner.
This is a fairly generic Monster of the Week which has just enough character stuff to keep me interested. It isn't perfectly executed, but I am finding myself loving the new cast enough that I like spending an hour with them each week, regardless of the overall quality of an episode.
If you're interested, my initial reaction to the episode was written for Doctor Who News, and the review can be found HERE. Admittedly, I rushed the review for them, as the BBC didn't supply a Preview episode, and I had to try and write the review ASAP after the US airing. Think of it something of a first draft of this. I quickly learned that I'm not up for that...so I probably will avoid writing a rushed review for TV episodes in which an advanced copy isn't available. I like to gather my thoughts and write them out. Rushing it isn't worth it for anyone really.
NEXT TIME: Trapped in a Med Ship
Written By: Chris Chibnall
Length: 50 Minutes
Year: 2018
The Doctor gets her friends back home to Sheffield, as promised, but she finds it a bit difficult to say goodbye right away. She joins Yaz and Ryan for tea, as Graham heads home to face the emptiness of his home without Grace, and while at Yaz's flat...they run into a new problem (I know...shocking), this time it is big spiders. Events lead the TARDIS team to a yet to be opened hotel owned by a miserable American businessman played by Chris Noth from "Law & Order," and there they find that the big spiders are numerous and some are even larger than a human being.
Chibnall has been writing almost all of the episodes of the season so far, co-writing last week's with Malorie Blackman. I'm assuming much of the episode was written by her, and he punched it up for his long term season plans or something. But at any rate, he has had been a credited writer on everything this season, and while his stories aren't blowing me away with their originality, his character stuff has been top notch. I'm enjoying his episodes, and while I am looking forward to seeing some stories written by other writers (which will have to wait until after next week it seems), I think he has done a good job of reinventing the show over the first half of his first series as showrunner.
This is a fairly generic Monster of the Week which has just enough character stuff to keep me interested. It isn't perfectly executed, but I am finding myself loving the new cast enough that I like spending an hour with them each week, regardless of the overall quality of an episode.
If you're interested, my initial reaction to the episode was written for Doctor Who News, and the review can be found HERE. Admittedly, I rushed the review for them, as the BBC didn't supply a Preview episode, and I had to try and write the review ASAP after the US airing. Think of it something of a first draft of this. I quickly learned that I'm not up for that...so I probably will avoid writing a rushed review for TV episodes in which an advanced copy isn't available. I like to gather my thoughts and write them out. Rushing it isn't worth it for anyone really.
NEXT TIME: Trapped in a Med Ship
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