Doctor Who: War of the Sontarans (13x02)

Well, there's certainly a lot going on, I'll give them that!!

Cons:

I think I'm noting a fatal flaw with the whole concept of this big time war/flux story, and that's that it's trying for such a large scope we're losing out on the personal connection piece of Doctor Who. Take our new companion, Dan, for instance. I really like this guy! I do! But in the first episode we established him, and got him connected to Yaz and the Doctor. In the second episode, the three are immediately separated again, and each spend the episode on their own branches of the adventure. The Doctor and Dan have hardly said more than two words to each other. So when the Doctor asks Dan if he'd like to come along at the end of the episode, the moment is still sweet, I guess, but it lacks the weight that it would have had, if the Doctor and Dan had had a chance to bond a bit more. Instead, everyone's off doing their own thing, and there's no particular cohesion between the Doctor and her companions. That's the thing I love most about the show when it's done well, and it's been pretty sparse this season so far.

I was also getting Loki vibes from the whole time planet thing, and not in a good way. Apparently there's like... a time council and time is breaking down or whatever. It just feels very unnecessarily high-concept sci-fi in a way I don't appreciate. The episode is so crowded with all these different characters and bad guys and historical figures, etc. that none of it had proper time to breathe, in my opinion.

This last complaint is hard to articulate, but I found the General Logan character to be irritating insofar as he made everything way too black and white. I seem to recall past seasons of Doctor Who having a bit more complexity to them, but here you have bad army man who wants to fight at all costs, and who attacks the retreating Sontarans. This is something that definitely already happened in a Tenth Doctor episode, and it also positions the Doctor as being the arbiter of morality for all of humanity, and then says "yep, she's right, humans are too violent and the Doctor is always correct." It's hard to articulate exactly, I just find the whole thing vaguely irritating.

Pros:

While I might not be pleased with the cohesion of this episode as a whole, I did think that many of the individual pieces were very strong. Mary Seacole was a real treat, and I loved the rapport between her and the Doctor. There's something endlessly charming about strong and interesting historical figures getting pulled into all this messy time nonsense and just rolling up their sleeves and getting to work, no matter how confused they might be.

I also liked meeting Dan's parents, I thought that made for a really fun energy, and shows where Dan gets his no-nonsense attitude and his gusto for jumping in and solving problems. While I might wish for more bonding time for the Doctor and Dan, I do appreciate that Dan is the kind of guy who's just going to jump in and do the right thing, even if it's scary. That's an admirable quality and he's such an affable guy that it makes it both amusing and moving, all the danger he's willing to get himself into for the sake of saving the world.

And then we've got all the time weirdness bullshit, which I wasn't crazy about on its face, but I did like Yaz meeting Vinder, the outpost guy we met last week. This brings him into the story and connects him to more that's going on, which I appreciate. Not too much to report here yet, although I will say I am all about the Doctor freaking out over Yaz's safety and being willing to do anything in the world to keep her safe! That's the good shit!

The TARDIS is having issues, which I find an intriguing ongoing plot concern. It seems that the Doctor might not be able to fully rely on her oldest friend in these times of trouble, which could cause some fun and deadly issues moving forward!

So there you have it; I know I left out talking about the dog people, who are going to guard Earth while this whole issue of the flux is sorted out, and I know I barely touched on the Sontarans in and of themselves, but frankly those elements just don't interest me as much as our main characters getting to interact! Fingers crossed we get more of that in the next episode.

7/10