Doctor Who Episodic Coverage: “The Story and the Engine”

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By on May 12th, 2025

“The Story and the Engine” Has Incredible Writing

“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.

Like, let’s unpack just some of what we now know. Not only are there the gods like Lux and Maestro who go around destroying things, but there are also Earth-specific gods. These are not just powerful beings that might end up on Earth, they are part of our history. Anansi, Saga, Bastet, and Dionysus have all met the Doctor (Loki is also namedropped, but we get less info), and removing any of them apparently would have an effect on humans.

This Episode Does A Lot For The Show’s Universe

And furthermore, the gods have people like the Barber. I’m still not clear on how Harbingers work in the lore, but the Barber is specifically a being who records the actions of gods. How many others are there like that we haven’t met?

And I could go on. And on. And on. I love all of this, it’s really interesting, but I am ultimately reviewing an episode of television. And “The Story and the Engine” does chain all of that data into a solid plot, but there’s a cost to so much information. Perhaps fittingly for an episode about storytelling, the plot becomes mostly continuous explanations and exposition as a detriment to most of the characters present.

A Lot Of The Characters Don’t Get Much Attention

What I mean is that we meet four people who have been trapped giving stories for a very long time, and we barely know them. There’s one scene where we’re given each of their social connections, and then they don’t get to do much else. Belinda gets almost even less. She’s basically not in the main plot, and so much of her dialogue feels off. I’m not even sure how she knew about the possibility of the engine being damaged—I just think “The Story and the Engine” needed someone to say it, and Belinda hadn’t done much yet in the scene. There are a lot of moments like this throughout. The Barber gives in too easily at multiple points. People forgive the Barber and—to a lesser extent, Abby—too easily for holding people hostage. Noticing this makes otherwise good scenes way less fun.  

But this isn’t as big a complaint as it sounds like, though. We get some good moments with the Doctor and Abby, for one. And, besides, it’s a tradeoff making an episode this way. I complained in my review of “The Robot Revolution” that Doctor Who can only do so much in an episode length, and by focusing on stories within “The Story and the Engine,” we get strong, individual stories. This is an episode that feels so tightly written because it’s focused on a distinct set of concepts. I can’t speak on all those concepts—there are a lot of things this episode explores that it’s not my business to say much on—but I can spend so much time unpacking the things I have because “The Story and the Engine” is so layered. I haven’t even gone into how the spider-ship acts curiously like the TARDIS in so many ways. Or the interesting meta-text of the Doctor’s life story being effectively infinite. I think this episode is incredibly rewatchable, built really for such. It’s an excellent episode of Doctor Who.  


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