Doctor Who: Arachnids in the UK (11x04)

This was a fun and standard episode. After last week's incredible outing, there was no way that any followup could maintain that level of quality. This episode didn't, but it was still pretty fun.

Cons:

This would have been a great opportunity to get to know Yaz a little better, and while it was nice to meet her family, I still feel like she's underdeveloped compared to Ryan and Graham. The emotional beats of this episode were still focused on Ryan and Graham, even though it was Yaz's family that was getting pulled in to the adventure. I hope we get a chance to dig in deeper with her and her family.

The villain, Robertson, is a little too on-the-nose for me. Sure, the environmental message of the episode is all well and good, but when the villain is cartoonish, and they even go so far as to have him running for president against Trump, the whole thing gets a little bit too sledge-hammer-y for my taste. Doctor Who has never been known for being subtle, but even so... come on. The part where he talked about how normal humans pick up guns and shoot things? Yeah, we get it. America is the worst.

Pros:

Honestly, the main thing to praise about this episode is that it's just a straight-forward good story, with creepy spiders, a scientific mystery, a negligent greedy capitalist villain, some good guest characters, and some good space for the Doctor to interact with her companions and the world around her. It felt like exactly the standard sort of fare I expect when I tune in to another episode of Doctor Who, and that's honestly so refreshing after so many years of Moffat twisting the narrative into knots.

I loved the recurring bit about Yaz's mother trying to figure out more about her new friends. She wonders if Yaz and the Doctor are seeing each other, and that's why they're acting so cagey. The Doctor is confused by the terminology. She says no, she doesn't think so. Are they? Later, Yaz's mother asks the same question about Ryan. That was fun. It also played in to the fact that Yaz lives at home, and from her family's perspective, she's only been gone half an hour. They don't know about these crazy adventures, and maybe they shouldn't!

The spiders were legitimately creepy, and yet by the end there's a real empathy for them, especially the mama spider. I always like it when an episode can take one basic concept and find all sorts of creative ways to twist it. The spiders were creepy in so many different ways, from cocooning a poor woman Shelob-style, to chasing people down hallways, to lurking unseen on the ceiling, to bursting out of the plumbing. Ick. Just writing this, I feel like there are creepy-crawley things all over me!

The emotional heart of the episode really rested in Graham coming back home to experience his old place as a widower for the first time. In just a few short scenes, this actor really conveyed the full depth of his despair and loneliness. We also see that Ryan's father is offering for him to come live with him, since he's his "proper" family. It's obvious that over the past few crazy adventures, Ryan has come to like Graham, and view him as his proper family more than anyone. It makes for a nice moment when the three companions decide to keep traveling with the Doctor at the end of the episode. There are many reasons for them all to be making this choice, but in Ryan's case, he's specifically choosing to stay with Graham, as well.

I'm a fan of all of these companions, and the fact that they all have obvious and compelling reasons for going on an adventure with the Doctor. I also like how lonely the Doctor is, how clearly desperate she is for companions. I feel like thus far there hasn't been a moment to slow down, and that this is intentional. The Doctor's last iteration was a pretty unhappy person by the end. This new Doctor is frenetic, she's happy, she's quirky, and she's always on the run, and always surrounding herself with people. Team TARDIS is awesome. It's also a coping mechanism for everyone involved, and I can't wait to see how that plays out as we move forward!

8/10