“The Story and the Engine” is quite the writing feat. Of all of the episodes this season—or last season—it feels like it has the most going on. Plotlines are not only densely interlocked, but the foreshadowing happens quickly and frequently. And, somehow, this episode is also one of the most expansive for the overall magical lore of Doctor Who.
I sadly disliked “Lucky Day” more than I expected. I get the vision. The idea is sound. Frankly, like a lot of episodes in this season so far, this is such a cool idea for a Doctor Who episode. But as time has gone on, I’ve been less and less fond of this one.
“Public Image” is a classic little horror story of an episode. There’s the tiniest cut back to the OIAR, but mostly we spend all the runtime with Heinrich Unheimlich.
“Dependents” is a sad, brutal exploration of trauma with excellent and heartbreaking acting from several of the voice actors. It’s shorter than a lot of other episodes but has managed to get a much deeper emotional response out of me than any other in the series. I am bummed out right now.
“The Well” is kind of everything I want from a spooky Doctor Who episode. It’s a classic science fiction horror scenario—abandoned, hostile location—with a pinch of cosmic unknowableness, and a slower pace to build that dread. It’s a shame that a few moments brought down the otherwise excellent experience slightly.
Well, somehow I predicted right. “Circling Back” contains a standard horror story. The fact it also has a pretty strong push on almost all overarching plotlines was just a bonus.
Alright, “Lux,” I’m onto that game. Having canonical critics in the episode point out its flaws to prevent people from considering them flaws is a fun trick. Hilariously, I hadn’t been bothered—or even noticed, honestly—that Lux changed his plan halfway through. I had long ago just accepted that this was going to be a surreal episode that wanted to really play with the fourth wall and that it wouldn’t have much of a true story.
“Scrutiny” is a lore dump episode for fans of The Magnus Archives, that also happens to contain one of the most emotionally brutal statements in the whole season. It’s barely even supernatural.
“The Robot Revolution” has given me a bit of a theory about Doctor Who as a series—at least lately. I don’t think its runtime allows it to satisfactorily run two simultaneous plotlines well. Something’s going to give.
“With Interest” finally gives us a superhero episode. I said last review that I wanted the pot to boil over, and it basically did. Daredevil locks in, even if the mask hasn’t come on. I hadn’t expected the episode to break the seal being a very trope-heavy, classic superhero scenario, but, hey, it was a ton of fun.
“Out of the Box” is perhaps the first comedy episode in this series and the second in Magnus as a whole. Maybe that’s just because of me being exposed to some much horror content, and not being bothered by the body horror, but I chuckled multiple times.
“Sic Semper Systema” is a pure setup episode—and it’s the only reason it suffers. The last two episodes were a very clean arc, the White Tiger arc, and it ended brutally. But it also ended, and the fallout isn’t lingered on as much as I expected. It’s just bringing up the boil.
