After a string of emotionally resonant and mythologically rich episodes, Doctor Who Series 15 pivots hard into spectacle, satire, and sci-fi camp with Episode 6, "The Interstellar Song Contest." It's a deliriously absurd and thrilling hour of television that marries the cosmic scale of the show with the heightened silliness of its most joyful moments — all while delivering a jaw-dropping lore reveal that reshapes everything we thought we knew about this season.
We begin with the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) attending the Interstellar Song Contest, a gloriously exaggerated galactic version of Eurovision that has become one of the universe's largest cultural events. It's bright, loud, and knowingly ridiculous, filled with aliens in glam regalia, political rivalries thinly veiled as musical rivalries, and a setting that seems to pulsate with the kinetic energy of chaos.
But the joy doesn't last long. Two terrorists from the planet Hellia disable the station’s oxygen shield, sending 100,000 attendees hurtling into deep space. It’s a chilling, high-concept disaster rendered with stylish flair. The visuals are haunting: people freezing mid-cheer, music fading to silence, the Doctor himself drifting helplessly among the stars. It’s as bleak as Doctor Who has been in some time.
Then comes the twist: a psychic call from the Doctor’s long-lost granddaughter, Susan Foreman (reprised by Carole Ann Ford). It’s a surreal, powerful moment. Susan has been absent from the show for decades, but her sudden, wordless call pulls the Doctor back into consciousness and back into the fray.
From there, the episode becomes a race against time. The Hellians plan to hijack the contest broadcast and send a signal that would kill trillions. The Doctor storms back into the station with a fury rarely seen from this incarnation and foils the plan with ruthless efficiency. Ncuti Gatwa shines here, showing flashes of righteous anger, sadness, and an almost vengeful determination.
The frozen audience is revived using cryogenic technology, and order is restored—almost. Just before departing, the Doctor and Belinda receive a message from a holographic Graham Norton (yes, really), who delivers a quiet devastation: Earth ended on 25 May 2024. The very day Belinda left.
But the episode has one more twist, and it's a big one.
Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson), who has been drifting in and out of the season with a sense of veiled menace, is the last person revived. As she staggers to her feet, we see her true face: she is The Rani, the long-lost Time Lord villainess. But instead of simply regenerating from the injuries she sustained, she bi-generates. Two Ranis now exist: one still played by Dobson, and a new, sharper, more dangerous version played by Archie Panjabi.
It’s a deliciously camp and terrifying twist. The Rani, in duplicate, is coming for the Doctor, and their arrival promises a war that could rival the Time War in its scope and chaos.
Director Ben A. Williams deserves credit for balancing the wild tonal shifts in Juno Dawson's highly entertaining script: from musical satire to sci-fi horror to emotional revelation to mythic escalation. It shouldn’t work. But somehow it does.
"The Interstellar Song Contest" is Doctor Who at its most madcap and metafictional. It swings for the fences and lands nearly every beat. It revives a beloved classic character, raises the stakes for Belinda and the Doctor, and sets the stage for what may become the series' most bombastic confrontation yet.
It may not be the most narratively coherent episode of the season, but it is certainly the most audacious.
And, if this new bi-generated Rani is anything to go by, the show is about to enter a whole new era of madness.
No comments:
Post a Comment