Doctor Who Episodic Coverage: “Boom”

“Boom” Wants To Be The Season’s Bleakest Entry

“Boom” is an episode that is clearly trying to be as morbid and macabre as possible. The story’s insistence on bleak moments, casual character death, and tragedy is so frequent it’s almost overplayed. I can’t believe I’m calling for the horror to be toned down—but here we are.

But I do have a lot to praise, despite that issue. Doctor Who doesn’t usually do “bottle episodes,” and it’s nice to have the variation. It’s not really a spoiler to say “Boom” is about The Doctor stepping on a landmine and will die if they move, leaving everyone around them to handle the scenario. Considering The Doctor usually overcomes challenges with mostly talking, this just ramps up the difficulty.

The Episode Just Piles On More And More Danger

It’s such a good challenge, actually, and such an attention-grabbing storytelling constraint, that it almost feels like cheating whenever the story cuts to a location that’s not immediately next to the landmine. “Boom” could’ve been even better if it just leaned into the premise fully. There’s such a sense of claustrophobia and desperation whenever it cuts to The Doctor trying to keep very still. But we got we got, and it’s still impressive.

And the thing that overcomes that issue, that still makes it impressive, is how the worldbuilding all ties back to that landmine—even the wider continuity references. “Boom” takes the already established “future human religious military” that’s shown up in other episodes and shows us an actual war they’re fighting in. A war where the “ambulances” are just as deadly as the landmines, and an ableist algorithm pretends to have any compassion at all as it sends soldiers to fight and die.

But for that sort of story to happen, there have to be characters to die, and that’s where my praise tapers off, the first paragraph of this review becomes relevant again, and “Boom” goes off the rails. Much like my complaint with “The Devil’s Chord,” the storyline has to rush. And the way it does that this time is by using the broadest characterization possible to establish sympathy for these doomed people—then kills them—and it doesn’t work that well. I don’t even recall anyone’s name. The actors all did fine jobs, but there wasn’t any time. Only when something threatened Ruby did I actually feel worried. Though unlikely this early in the season, Doctor Who will kill off companions. So, there was an actual, long-term, narrative threat there.

None Of The Sad Moments Actually Work That Well

It also has a lackluster conclusion. No spoilers, but there had to be a more sci-fi way for The Doctor to solve the problem. The whole draw of “Boom” is we get to see The Doctor win without access to their sonic, the T.A.R.D.I.S., or even much physical movement. Anything more creative than what we got, anything better foreshadowed, would’ve elevated the ending.

“Boom” still manages to more or less do what it set out to do, though. I can’t deny it delivered more than it disappointed. It’s got tone problems—even The Doctor seems more morbid than usual—and characterization problems, but it’s a thrilling, tense episode that shows how much story is possible with only a handful of characters and some really dire stakes. This season hasn’t had a bad episode yet, and “Boom” certainly doesn’t break that trend.  

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