The Tsuranga Conundrum [TV/2018.11.4]

★★★☆☆

  Series 11 is such a great marriage of the classic and new series (for better and for worse, but mostly for the better), and this episode really drives that home. We have a four-person TARDIS team who lose the ship in unforeseeable circumstances, a big shapeship/closed-off setting with an unknown danger threatening the lives inside, a heavy focus on science fiction with the general design philosophy and direction of the episode's visual splendor -- what can I say, I just really like the calming feeling all the sterilised white gives me. There are plenty of character moments as well, ripped straight from the Russell T Davies era, with Ryan being the companion in focus as a pregnant man from the future reminds him of his own deadbeat dad. Tosin Cole may not be the most enthusiastic actor to have played a companion in the show, but it's hardly a problem when he delivers such a fine performance during those expository scenes.

  Rewatching the Jodie Whittaker episodes have made me double down on the notion that the vast majority of people disliking this era don't really know that they're disliking it out of flimsy reasons, because I'm left wondering how this has seemingly stirred up such a big fuss. The Pting? An adorable creature, realised well through CGI and made to work well within the script as a driving force of the drama. The cast of characters? A fine lot brought to life well and interesting for its fleshing out of the 67th century. The TARDIS fam? Not their most utilised moment, sure, but it again feels like a marriage of the classic and new with the companions mostly taking a backseat for the Doctor and her drama, and the Thirteenth Doctor gets some fine moments in her oeuvre indeed (walking around while her body's not yet fully healed, defusing the bomb, outsmarting the Pting with Yaz, etc.). As an episode of Dr. Who, there's really nothing I can think of that The Tsuranga Conundrum does wrong. It knows what it's up to and does it remarkably -- a slick, quick base-under-siege story with a cute CGI monster and an engaging Doctor.