Lux

Not long ago I've watched Torchwood which is a series about captain Jack Harkness and his team fighting everything extraordinary that comes to Earth and tries to destroy it or people. Trying not to spoil too much but there is an episode about group of circus artists getting out of the movie.

So as I've started watching Lux I've got scared that its going to be a funnier, more colourful remake of Torchwood's episode.

I'm glad to say it wasn't!

As the idea is similar, Lux was pushed in completely different direction. First of all mr Ring-A-Ding is a made up character. So it takes a while to understand his intentions. I loved the twists in the episode. I loved the animation style and how it got incorporated.

Overall it was really fun to watch it.

But I still question the originality of the show.

Well well well. A super fab episode.

An awesome sci-fi premise, an incredibly menacing villain, a healthy amount of meta and playing with the format that wasn't too much, and some great characterisation and heartfelt moments. This episode was awesome, and Who at its finest, with a really tight script met with high quality production value - this is where the new era of Doctor Who shines. You can tell RTD put his all into this script and it really shows. Performances are amazing as ever and it's clear these two leads are a brilliant duo.

Things are looking bright this season, with two amazing episodes so far, and episodes to come looking just as fantastic.

I know the fantasy element seems to be annoying people, but the Celestial Toymaker first appeared in the William Hartnell era (which I saw when it first went out). And one should remember that when the first episodes went out we were presented with a police box, an everyday sight on the street back then, which was bigger on the inside. That was very radical at the time.

So this episode, for me, had some echoes of my 8 year old self watching the first one. I loved the twists and turns and that nothing was quite as it seemed. There seems to be a lot of little loose ends being subtly laid down as well. I thought it a highly entertaining episode and I loved every minute of it but then I'm a 50s child and I love art deco (especially the 50s art deco revival). They had me with that cinema.

Seeing the fans was a nice touch, the animation figure looks cool and classy. The Episode introduces the lives and how they disappeared, the Cinema is dark and hollow. The restaurant gives the cinema the eerie atmosphere as cries of help from a mother after loosing her son is so warm and welcoming, it adds the charm and the swiftness. The colour of the episode is also great as they make it seem bright and realistic. The ending and Mrs Flood arc raises the stakes and them coming back was fantastic.

The Episodes are slowly progressing. I wish the story would also involve our companions job more, overall a Good Episode.

The first episode of this season, I felt, seeded a lot of plot points for the future, but at the expense of the episode itself. I have similar criticisms about this second run, though I do feel that it was better overall.

Whilst layout out equipment to help with their journey to May 24th, 2025, The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Belinda (Varada Sethu) land in Miami, in 1952. There they discover a chained-up cinema, from which a number of people have disappeared. They learn the cinema is still operated by Mr Pye (Linus Roach), though he operates in fear of Mr Ring-a-Ding (Alan Cumming) a living cartoon that has escaped into the real world and who is behind the disappearance.

Might as well start with the episodes big talking point, a fourth wall breaking scene in which The Doctor and Belinda enter the living room of three Doctor Who fans who are watching the episode unfold. Fourth wall breaking has been quite a prevalent idea in the time of the fifteenth Doctor, mostly with Mrs Flood but he's also winked at the camera himself - I'm starting to wonder if, rather than being a quirk of the series, it's actually going to become a genuine plot point. I was initially a bit disappointed with the idea of the fan scene, there were some nice gags to it, but I felt it was a bit too self-indulgent. I did think that the reveal of how it all actually worked was very clever though and that made me appreciate the whole scene more.

Mr Ring-a-Ding's connection to the wider story of this Doctor was nice, though I'm again not sure I entirely understand the "rules" of it. I also didn't really understand exactly what his powers were, or what he could actually do. Looked amazing though. Though I'm surprised given the partnership with Disney that the BBC has for "Doctor Who" why it wasn't more closely linked to the animation they did at the time, rather than the Fleisher/Popeye/Betty Boop style that they ultimately landed on.

As I've said, his defeat (?) and the episodes story doesn't really need to be about The Doctor, in fact you could easily have argued that - given a long enough timescale, the cinema would have been demolished and exactly the same result would have occurred had he never arrived.

Fine again, but I would perhaps a bit more focus on the actual episode, rather than the future, for a while.