IAN HYLAND on last night’s telly
Doctor Who ★★★
The Doctor Who lot must have been cursing Strictly Come Dancing for the past week or so. They barely had time to bask in the glow of Jodie Whittaker’s stonking full debut last weekend before it was elbowed from the news cycle by the fallout from a comedian no one had ever heard of getting fruity with his dance partner.
And last night? Her second outing was the warm-up act as millions of viewers who hadn’t bothered to check the online spoilers waited to find out whether the generous marking from the Strictly judges had succeeded in saving Seann Walsh and
Katya Jones. Speaking of Seann and Katya, how come we haven’t started calling them SeYa yet? Or are we saving that one for when they do get voted off?
Anyway, without wishing to be a party pooper, last night was probably a good time for people’s attention to be focused elsewhere. It felt like new Doctor Who had swiftly reverted to being old Doctor Who. A wellmade, wellintentioned children’s sci-fi show.
Nothing wrong with that, of course.
My kids still enjoyed it. However, I can’t pretend that I was gripped by an episode which could be best summed up by a line delivered by Whittaker halfway through: “We need to get out of here. Everybody move fast!”
I know it’s still early days, but if Whittaker is going to be waving her arms around and speaking really quickly to disguise plots as thin as this all the way until Christmas then I have a small favour to ask of The Doctor.
Can I borrow your TARDIS? I fancy skipping forward a couple of months.
Can I borrow the Doctor’s TARDIS and skip forward a few months?