Doctor Who: The Devil’s Chord review: Is this madness?

The next consists of spoilers for “The Satan’s Chord.”

For a present about time (and area) journey interwoven with British popular culture since its begin in 1963, a visit to go to the Beatles is an apparent premise. So apparent that that is the second time we’ve had a “what if” episode hinging on the Fab 4’s cultural influence. In spite of everything, each the Beatles and Physician Who grew to become world cultural exports as Britain flexed its post-imperial smooth energy. However whereas there’s loads of materials to mine in that premise, this isn’t an episode that’s interested by doing that, relegating the Beatles to little greater than window dressing.

This has at all times been a trick in Physician Who’s toolbox, particularly when Russell T. Davies is in cost. He loves dangling an thought, or eye-catching visible, to lure in an viewers earlier than shifting the main target to one thing else. I’m reminded of the kung-fu monks from “Tooth and Claw” which regarded nice within the trailers however had no actual influence on the story. It’s “Tooth and Claw” that “The Satan’s Chord” feels just like — an early season one episode that doesn’t fairly work in and of itself, however does spend loads of its time gesturing to this 12 months’s recurring themes. (FilmStories reported from a current Q&A, the place Davies stated that this episode lacked a central plot and was, as a substitute, “Just a few subplots.”)

However to grasp that, and my stance, we’re going to must take a bit of take a look at The Context earlier than we get to inspecting the meat. You see, throughout its historical past, Physician Who has bent itself to suit the imaginative and prescient of its major artistic determine and Davies is a voracious watcher of TV. He’s obsessive about the shape and format of TV as a lot as its content material, and that is mirrored in his work. His episodes usually develop with information studies, CCTV clips and deeper types of exposition revealed by way of screens. “Bad Wolf” is a superb instance, the place the present lands at a TV studio that’s making sci-fi variations of the then-current pantheon of British actuality TV.

Davies additionally trusts his viewers to instinctively know the unstated guidelines of TV even when they’ll’t identify them. Which is why I believe it’s value taking a look at “The Satan’s Chord” as an episode that’s, for need of a greater phrase, collapsing in on itself. When Mrs. Flood talks to the digital camera on the finish of “Church on Ruby Street,” it felt Intentionally Flawed, particularly after she was seemingly unaware of the TARDIS earlier within the episode. Right here, the quite a few fourth wall breaks and lapses in storytelling are equally an intentional signal of How Flawed Issues Are. What begins out as a by-the-numbers celeb historic rapidly collapses right into a fever dream like Sam Lowry’s descent into insanity on the finish of Brazil.

We open in a live performance corridor in 1925 as a instructor outlines the fundamentals of music principle for a younger little one. He reveals off that he has “found” The Satan’s Chord and, by enjoying it, unleashes Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon), the embodiment of music. Maestro is a godlike elemental drive and a toddler of the Toymaker – featured villain of the sixtieth Anniversary particular episode “The Giggle.” After praising the musician for his or her genius, Maestro then sucks the music out of their coronary heart and eats it like cotton sweet earlier than staring into the digital camera and enjoying the present’s theme tune on the piano.

When the titles finish (discover the theme is enjoying out of the jukebox) it’s clear Ruby has been on the TARDIS for a while. She asks the Physician if it will be doable to go to the recording of the Beatles’ first album on the EMI’s studios on Abbey Street. Earlier than they open the doorways, she asks if it is likely to be value them turning into much less conspicuously trendy garments and so they spring off to pattern the delights of the TARDIS wardrobe, full with a wig for the Physician.

The pair sneak into George Martin’s producer’s sales space however rapidly spot one thing is mistaken with the scene in entrance of them. Relatively than enjoying any of Please Please Me’s huge and recognizable hits, they’re turning out mop-top music about animals. The Physician doesn’t understand it but however Maestro has spent the previous few many years swallowing all the music out of individuals’s hearts. It’s a genius approach to get round the truth that, even with all of the money thrown at Get Again and Disney’s huge financial institution steadiness, Doctor Who still can’t readily afford to license Beatles songs.

Subsequent door, (well-known British singer / TV presenter / infamous diva) Cilla Black is equally stricken with a case of the muzaks whereas a live performance orchestra is nearly mustering a model of Three Blind Mice. The Physician and Ruby head to the canteen to nook John and Paul to try to discover out what went mistaken with historical past. They then head to the roof with a piano, the place Ruby performs a tune she wrote to assist a buddy recover from a breakup. However as soon as the Physician hears Maestro’s giggle, he sprints away, hiding in a close-by basement.

The Physician explains that any villain who laughs is tied to the Toymaker and is an indication of the fractured universe. Preventing the Toymaker in “The Giggle” was sufficiently draining and tough, particularly given how highly effective these elemental forces are, that he doesn’t need to do it once more. Maestro is looking for them, however the Physician makes use of his sonic screwdriver to kill all the sound within the space. (The Physician is aware of simply sufficient about how the shape and format of TV works to show the tables on their opponent.) Maestro works out how one can undo the blocking – with some magnificent sound enhancing — however is then distracted from their pursuit of the Physician by an older girl Ruby had impressed to play the piano.

The eagle-eyed amongst you’ll discover that that is the second time in two episodes that Ruby has impressed one other particular person to be daring to their detriment. Her phrases had been sufficient to encourage Eric to try to tackle the bogeyman single-handed in “House Infants,” almost imperiling him. The older girl isn’t so fortunate and will get consumed by Maestro

Due to how lengthy Physician Who has run, it is usually its personal supply materials. Ruby, as soon as they’ve escaped, assumes that all the pieces is okay as a result of she remembers listening to music as a toddler and so subsequently Maestro can’t have received. So, in a scene pulled from “Pyramids of Mars,” the Physician takes her to 2024 within the TARDIS to point out the wreckage of the alternate future. As a result of whereas she’s protected against the ravages of continuity by the actual fact she’s touring by way of time, the remainder of the universe isn’t so fortunate.

However this flash-forward, in an echo of the assembly with the Toymaker, flips from a visage of a bombed-out London to a stagey set. Maestro arrives behind a white piano to stipulate their plan to rid the universe of music, leaving simply the aeolian tones of the wind brushing in opposition to objects. However the Physician says {that a} universe with out music, unable to specific pleasure or anger by way of artwork, turns bitter and destroys itself. It is a feeling I can relate to — like when love turns into so painful in its absence that you simply’d fairly disappear into the void than preserve occurring. Davies can also be a nihilist so lots of his episodes have revolved across the darkish face of humanity that reveals itself when denied Earthly pleasures.

Escaping again to the ‘60s, the Physician and Ruby meet Maestro and discover the partitions of actuality are collapsing. Murray Gold’s swirling soundtrack isn’t simply the background music, it’s bled into the material of the present itself. The Physician and Ruby begin looking for a chord that may bind Maestro with the Mrs. Mills piano, a (actual) fixture of Abbey Street’s studio. As they play, the notes are rendered floating over the piano, however the pair fail to determine the ultimate word earlier than Maestro turns up.

Maestro begins attacking, throwing round musical scores as weapons and hurling the piano into the corridor. It’s right here that the episode’s coherence begins to sag, the scenes get longer and odder, a wonky model of a regular monster-of-the-week TV present conclusion. The strain builds, and all seems misplaced, till John and Paul come upon the piano within the hallway. They’re in a position to see the notes hanging within the air over the piano and with their, uh, innate musical nous, and full the chord to bind the villain. However earlier than they’re whisked away, Maestro has time to disclose they aren’t the one one of many Toymaker’s minions coming, and “the one who waits” is lurking within the background.

Out of nowhere, the episode ends with an enormous musical quantity that options the solid dancing by way of the Abbey Street units, delighted on the return of music. Even the steps of the street crossing gentle up because the Physician and Ruby minimize a rug throughout them. I can’t work out if it’s merely an indulgent sequence, or one other huge signal that the present’s construction is breaking down. That the Physician and Ruby are blind to the obvious Wrongness of all of it hints on the latter, particularly given the deeper context of the tune’s title — see under.

There are different indicators that Physician Who is collapsing into its personal TV sequence, together with the casting selections. The older girl who performs the piano is June Hudson, the present’s costume designer from 1978 to 1980 — who famously redesigned the fourth Physician’s costume. The musician on the piano in the course of the dance quantity is Murray Gold, whereas the figures the Physician and Ruby dance with on the finish are Strictly Come Dancing stars Shirley Ballas and Johannes Radebe. Perhaps the large nemesis haunting the sequence will probably be some type that might threaten its existence as a TV present itself.

It’s value saying that Physician Who has an uneasy relationship with “huge” villain performances which can turn hard into hamminess. However Jinkx Monsoon manages to pitch Maestro as simply huge and flamboyant sufficient to steal each scene they’re in, however by no means too foolish. It’s additionally the fitting facet of charming and magnetic, and whereas they don’t have wherever close to sufficient time to correctly face off in opposition to Ncuti Gatwa’s Physician, it’s nonetheless a terrific match-up.

The issue of Susan Twist

As a lot as I don’t need to get into the weeds right here, it’s doable these things goes to come back up later that I have to flag it. Physician Who has been operating for greater than 60 years with a revolving door of artistic figures who paid little-to-no consideration to consistency. A handy approach to justify these is by suggesting time journey, by its very nature, would at all times mess up your private historical past. However, in latter days, the present has usually most popular to miss the thornier elements of its backstory, just like the existence of the Physician’s granddaughter, Susan.

When the present began, the Physician was joined on his adventures by Susan and a pair of academics who adopted her residence one evening. Lengthy earlier than any point out of Time Lords or Gallifrey, she was simply the child determine who usually wound up needing rescuing. Then, in “The Dalek Invasion of Earth,” the Physician exiles her to twenty second century Earth as a result of she needs to kiss a boy. His goodbye speech has been lengthy since de-contextualized and made to sound noble. However it’s basically him going “yeah, you’re interested by boys now, so that you go make infants (eww infants) and keep right here whereas I am going off operating across the universe.” Sure, it’s a bit yikes.

This ties in with a small physique of writing about this trope in kids’s literature about the way in which feminine characters are handled when reaching maturity. Together with a sexual awakening, that is usually used as justification to dump them out of the narrative. It’s even referred to as “The Drawback of Susan,” albeit named after Neil Gaiman’s rebuttal of what occurs to Susan on the finish of The Chronicles of Narnia. For those who’d wish to study extra, you possibly can learn Elizabeth Sandifer’s essay on “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” which talks about this in some element.

Why is that this related? As a result of when Davies’ returned to Physician Who, he solid the identical actress in two completely different episodes. Susan Twist performed Mrs. Merridew in “Wild Blue Yonder” and was seen once more in “The Church on Ruby Street,” which despatched keen-eyed followers right into a frenzy. She pops up right here as a tea girl and, on the roof of Abbey Street; the Physician even talks concerning the truth one other of his incarnations resides in Shoreditch in 1963 together with his granddaughter. That the episode ends with a musical quantity referred to as “There’s at all times a Twist on the finish” with Ncuti Gatwa winking to digital camera is as huge a neon signal as you could possibly hope for.

Physician Who followers — by no means ones to not scour the textual content, metatext and paratext of every episode — took Twist’s repeated casting as a signpost. They assumed, not unjustifiably, that this sequence would characteristic a twist about Susan, and that Davies was subtly signaling this to diehard followers. Given Twist’s look right here, and that we get a tune saying the quiet half out loud, appears to vindicate these theories. Except, after all, it’s all a triple bluff, however I’m unsure how anybody may recreation that efficiently. The one query that continues to be, after all, is what Davies’ plan is, and the way precisely it’ll play out within the subsequent six episodes.