13.2: The Ghost Monument

In which we marvel at how easy this would be to fix.

Broadcast: October 2018

Watched: June 2022

“Welcome to what I presume is your first alien planet. Don’t touch anything.”

Or, if I wanted to be bitchy: “Oh, sorry Yaz, I forgot you were there.”

The opening is, as has oft been noted, great. There’s a real sense of wonder to it: the companions are shocked to find themselves in space, nothing is taken for granted. The design work feels Star Wars-y, I think? Dirty spaceships on a desert planet, etc. The actual plot is clearly meant to serve the same function as Marco Polo, bonding the team through lengthy adversity, and learning the lesson “We all need other people to survive” along the way. 

The problem is, it’s neither lengthy nor adverse, it’s basically a stroll. The wonder which dominates the first 10 minutes vanishes as we wander aimlessly through some old warehouses filled with evil paper towels. The cast mention the three suns a lot more than we actually see them.

And the whole thing just wastes all its ideas. It’s a race, but we don’t see any racing. (Why are there not more teams at the start who die horribly, leading the last two to team up? That would be more dramatic AND a better fit with the theme. Was it just budget cuts?) The scene in the tent with the music is very atmospheric, and “This whole planet has been made cruel” is a *great* line... but the water is just water and we don’t see enough of the scary dishrags for them to feel like a threat. Art Malik is not quite so completely wasted as I remembered him being, but it’s still a fairly small role.

And Chibnall being Chibnall we also get a horrible story about someone’s childhood, which fits the theme but goes way OTT, and a bunch of stuff about a lost civilisation, which doesn’t fit the theme at all because it’s clearly been angled towards the season long plot about the evil Stenza but that plot gets forgotten. So it just... misses the theme for no reason.

It’s not bad. It’s quite entertaining, even. But in being a mediocre episode where you can immediately see the much better version that they didn’t bother to make, it’s sort of the urChibnall episode. 

Other things:

• The new arrangement of theme is great, at least.

• Thank god they don’t try to make the TARDIS being the ghost monument a twist, it’s far too obvious.

• For the second episode running, aliens are implanting things in the companions (last time it was bombs, this time they’re medical implants). Bit of a weird coincidence, that. Does give Graham a chance to say, “Well, can people and things stop putting stuff inside me without my permission!” at least.

• Talking of: him trying to look after Ryan, who visibly hates his guts, is still my favourite bit of the season. In the opening scenes you can see how good Walsh actually is: he’s very understated. 

• The Ryan Call of Duty bit is very funny, even if it makes no sense that a) he can shoot straight despite his dyspraxia, and b) the sniperbots can’t shoot straight despite being sniperbots.

• “Thanks for waiting.” “Always.” Yeah they’re definitely planning on Ryan/Yaz at this point.

• The Stenza were clearly meant to be big bad: despite having met one last week, I literally had to look up who they were. I’d also forgotten that this episode also sets up the Timeless Child stuff, much earlier than I thought.

• The bit at the end when the Doctor gives up is incredibly un-Doctorish. The TARDIS finally appearing when the companions believe hard enough is incredibly annoying.

• When the Doctor says “You’ve redecorated” I was in actual physical pain until she said “I really like it”.

• God why don’t they just start with three contestants? It’s so easy to fix it’s winding me right up.