C+Q - The Tsuranga Conundrum (2018)

The pink t-shirt is my favourite Thirteen costume variation. That or the blue t-shirt paired with the Resolution scarf.

We've reached the midpoint of Series 11, Episode 5 out of 10, and it was at this point in watching that I realised the reduction in episodes from 12 to 10 was really going to bother me. Ryan, Yaz, and Graham have only just agreed to be companions and already their first series is halfway over. Yaz is yet to make a strong impression on me and the evolution of Ryan and Graham as characters is so gradual that you could mix up the episodes between the opener and the finale and air them in any order you wanted (I know this because the episode order literally did change during production). Still, if there's one thing Series 11 understands it's the value of a good Big Finish gap. Despite this being the first adventure after the companions become companions, it doesn't follow on directly from Arachnids in the UK. The opening of The Tsuranga Conundrum makes it clear that there's been some off-screen time for the TARDIS team to get to know each other, and these sorts of gaps do wonders for making a run feel more substantial. By constrast, despite the vast differences between Robot, The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, and Revenge of the Cybermen, it's hard for me to shake the idea that they all technically take place in the same day.

Anyway, this episode is fine. The white and blue corridors of the ship make a strong visual contrast with what we've seen up to now, with 'running up and down spaceship corridors' being a story aesthetic Series 11 hasn't done yet. That said, we're still firmly in the territory of 'things Doctor Who has done before'. The spark of originality comes from the Pting, an alien I actually quite like. One of the great benefits of not relying on the A-listers for Whittaker's first series is that we get a whole bunch of new monsters added to the Who lexicon. I could easily see the Pting return at some point, although probably not as a story's main villain.

Ryan and Graham have an okay amount of stuff to do in the sense that they actually have stuff to do. I actually had to think for a minute to remember what Yaz did this episode. Top of the priority list for Series 12 really has to be making more out of her character, because so far she's just been 'the third one'. As much as I like this larger TARDIS team as a way to mix up the New Who formula, I also think there's a reason why three companions isn't the standard. Plenty of shows have casts of four or more characters, but Doctor Who seems to struggle to make it work properly. Then again, plenty of shows also manage the astonishing magic trick of being on television every year at a consistent time but oh well. I'm so relieved that this group of four are heading into Series 12 intact, and that they'll (presumably) have another 10 episodes to get it right. Yaz just needs more personality and an arc for Mandip Gill to flex her talent. I love all the actors in Series 11, I just want them to be given more.

It's also around this point in Series 11 that I realised the 'timeless child' thing from The Ghost Monument was never going to come up again and that this series has absolutely no mystery or ongoing storyline to keep me watching. After the Moffat era, with all its multi-year-long mysteries and deep rich character arcs where relationships would grow and evolve and shift with time and shared experience, this feels like an obvious step back. I was prepared for Doctor Who after the departure of my favourite writer to not be as perfectly suited to my tastes as I would've liked, but there really doesn't seem to be any substitute offered for the lack of mysteries and character arcs. Instead it's just a string of adventures I've vaguely seen before. I've seen modern day Earth, I've seen futuristic desert planets, I've seen celebrity historicals, I've seen giant spiders, and I've seen base under seige stories all done in Doctor Who before. But it's fine. I'm ultimately enjoying myself, and the stuff that matters, Jodie Whittaker and her companions, are still great fun to watch every week.