Doctor Who deepens the show's central mysteries, and repeats one very high profile old trick
Three episodes into the new season — four, if you count last year’s Christmas Special as an episode of the new season, which apparently Disney+ does — and it’s clear that Doctor Who is playing multiple different games with the audience at once… and two of them might be the same game, hidden in plain sight.
On the face of it, ‘Boom’ is an episode that sees writer Steven Moffat not just return to Doctor Who for the first time since he stepped down as showrunner with 2017’s ‘Twice Upon a Time,’ but return to not one, but two different memorable elements from his time with the show. The central gimmick of the episode — the Doctor steps on a landmine, and the rest of the episode is basically playing out the “how will he get out of that?” question over an extended period — recalls the ‘handmines’ sequences from Moffat’s own ‘The Magician’s Apprentice’ and ‘The Witch’s Familiar’ back in 2015 (nine years ago now!), with both being seemingly inspired by a landmine sequence in the original series’ ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ all the way back in 1975. Oh, and there’s a full-on repeat of the ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ twist, as well… maybe that’s where we should start.
One of the recurring mysteries of this current season of Doctor Who is just who the old woman who keeps showing up actually is. (Actress Susan Twist has her largest role to date in this episode, playing the AI of the ambulance, not coincidentally.) The idea of a character re-appearing throughout the timeline was central to Clara Oswald’s introduction as the Doctor’s companion, with Jenna Coleman initially appearing, without notice, as a seemingly different character in ‘Asylum of the Daleks.’ That trick is perhaps being repeated in ‘Boom,’ which features Varada Sethu — who has already been announced as a future companion to the Doctor next season — appearing as Mundy Flynn.
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