Review of The Tsuranga Conundrum
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
The cautious optimism with which I entered this series has begun to wane.
Here we are, halfway through the series, and I’m still not really excited about it. Yes, I love Whittaker’s Doctor. Yes, I really like the Companions—what I know of them, anyway. And yes, each story has had some really good, enjoyable elements to it. But it’s starting to feel very same-old same-old; after only five episodes, that seems like a precarious place to be.
Strangely, that feeling didn’t really hit me until my second viewing of The Tsuranga Conundrum. That is, the first time through, when I was just watching for the pure experience, I liked the episode fine. It didn’t fill me with giddy delight or move me deeply like some of the best ones do, but it also didn’t set my teeth on edge like the worst. However, when I went back to watch and take notes for this review, I found myself checking the run-time counter again and again, to see how much more I needed to sit through. Bad sign.
It all comes down, I believe, to the showrunner’s heavy hand in this first half of the series. Aside from Rosa, which also had his name on it, he has written every Whittaker episode we’ve seen to date. We have effectively been given only a single lens through which to view this incarnation of the Doctor, and only one writer’s imagination and mode of storytelling in which to engage with her. Variety is the spice of life, and this recipe is beginning to taste bland.
To wit, even after visiting her family last week, we still know next to nothing about what makes Yaz tick. While I agree with other discussions that say she came into the show a more fully formed character than Ryan (who gets yet another B-plot exploring his messed-up family life), I still want there to be character growth. What does she want out of life? What stands in her way? What wounds need to be healed? Chibnall does such a good job of making one-off characters feel fleshed out that the utter lack of depth for Yaz feels all the starker.
Turning to this episode in particular, there is so much focus on those character B-plots that the A-plot (stuck on a ship which is about to be destroyed either by an alien lifeform or an overzealous bureaucracy) almost falls to the wayside. When it does take center stage, it feels either completely derivative (Medic Astos gets ejected in a life pod, à la Martha Jones in “42” (also penned by Chibnall); the Pting is totally Stitch; and the entire thing is very Star Trek) or extraneous (there’s no reason for that life pod to explode if the Pting is seeking out energy—it wouldn’t throw away food like that, especially considering the denouement of that narrative thread; there’s also no reason for the Doctor to spend a full minute pontificating about how the antimatter drive works and how she’s in love with it—Doctor Who works best when writer’s don’t try to explain the science because, like Star Wars, Doctor Who is actually fantasy).
The other thing that has begun to bug me about Chibnall’s version of the show is how heavy-handed the messaging is. Listen—I am 100% the target market for the social justice, be-accepting-and-supportive-of-everyone theme he’s got going this series, but even I am getting tired of how in-your-face it is. It seems like every episode the Doctor delivers some soliloquy about inclusivity and striving to create a better world. This time it was how hope “doesn’t just offer itself up. You have to use your imagination. Imagine the solution and work to make it a reality. Whole worlds pivot on acts of imagination.” I’m telling you, I love that shit, but I’d rather get it in more infrequent doses.
But perhaps the fact that I’m already on board that train is my problem. Maybe it’s aimed at the fans who think that “social justice warrior” is a slur. Maybe those are the fans who need to see the Doctor—their hero—doing active social justice work, stating these values point blank, and standing up for the same people said fans would “rather not see on their screens at all.”
I suppose that’s Chibnall’s conundrum: how to thread the needle between boring the fans who are already all-in and reaching those who need the message hammered home. With that in mind, I can probably put up with a bit of preaching to the choir. I just hope that I can start to feel a little more excitement about the stories themselves again once someone else gets a shot at telling them.
I do wonder if Chibnall isn’t trying too hard. The dialogue in the junk yard about unseen trips struck me as being clunky and shoe-horned in.
Chibnall certainly puts the effort in to create strong characters but even though I felt the threat, I felt a bit “so what?” about the supporting characters.
I also think that having the P’ting resemble a number of other cute SF characters detracted somewhat. Cute but deadly is good, take a look at the Tom Baker comic story, I think called The Starbeast with a cute ball of fur villain called The Meep to see how it is done well.
I am beginning to wonder if Chibnall has bitten off more than he can chew but I hope I am wrong and I do understand that the next four stories are not penned (overtly) by him so maybe the style will evolve some more.
I am also beginning to think that three companions is one too many but maybe we’ll see some Yaz development in next week’s “Grandmother’s Day”
Not brilliant but still better than calamities like Curse of the Black Spot and still loving the New Doctor.
Sounds like we’re pretty much on the same page. 🙂 Keeping my fingers crossed for some pending improvement!