Doctor Who‘s Latest Story Was About the Power ofDoctor WhoItself

AsDoctor Whohas , column inch - by - inch , diversified the casting of its heroes , its willingness to tell stories directly work by those decision has trailed a little behind . When Jodie Whittaker became the thirteenth Doctor , only a few of her tale ultimately engage with what it think that the Doctor now inhabited a female physical structure . With the arrival of Ncuti Gatwa in the TARDIS last year , his debut season harness his status as the first Black man and the first openly gay player to play the Time Lord to … motley winner , specially on the former .

But now , in the strongest episode of his sophomore time of year yet , we have a story that nails explore the Doctor ’s late identity , because it earmark itself the gracility of being up front about engaging with that idea .

Last season ’s “ Dot and Bubble”played with the notion of the Doctor ’s racial identity by trapping him on a planet of white supremacists being eaten by giant slug monsters , but by saving that reveal for its closing scene as a gotcha for the Doctor and the interview alike , the episode failed to really engage with what it meant for the Doctor ’s identicalness as a shameful Isle of Man to be called into head outside of a single moment . “ The Story and the Engine , ” then , by playwright Inua Ellams , endure as an interesting contrast . It is Gatwa ’s firstDoctor Whoscript save entirely by a person of colour ( this season’s“The Well”was co - credited between Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel - Walfall ) . It is also a story that explicitly leverages Gatwa ’s identity as a smuggled man to tell a history that can only be assure in such a setting .

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But perhaps most crucially of all that in dividing line , is that it is a level that use that identity to evidence a story of joy , of the universality and baron of storytelling , something that connects the Doctor to the people they pine to protect . And it can only do so by distinctly plant that connection between the story being told , and its setting , to the Doctor ’s current identity from the get - go .

Where that narration takes position is Lagos , Nigeria , as the Doctor and Belinda continue to bill up their “ try and regain 2025 London ” equipment by hopping around in time and place . Landing in Lagos , the Doctor gets what he needs almost immediately , but is reluctant to move on apace : there ’s a local barbershop , ran by a valet named Omo ( Sule Rimi ) , that he make out visiting . We ’ve seen Gatwa ’s Doctor represent with myriad styles , specially with his hair , but as Belinda points out to him , he has a massive time ship that does all that for him . The reason Omo ’s shop is special , the Doctor argues , is because it ’s a place that make his current incarnation feel see , in a agency he has n’t before .

Although it ’s not the first meter the Doctor has ever been Black ( as we get a wonderful nod to with a brief surprise visual aspect byJo Martin ’s Fugitive Doctorlater on ) , having the Doctor say to Belinda his desire to experience recognized and welcome in quad as a Black man – and have them both , as the first TARDIS squad entirely made up of people of colour , unite over that in their developing friendly relationship – is an unbelievably compelling musical theme , and it ’s one that really resonates compare to the time this Doctor ’s racial individuality has been used in stories only to do as a point of conflict , like “ Dot and house of cards ” orbriefly in “ Lux ” .

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After Belinda acquiesces and lets the Doctor check in for a trimming though , things recoil into high gear mechanism . It turns out Omo ’s shop class is under young management , a occult figure know only as the Barber ( Ariyon Bakare ) , who has trapped Omo and several other men there , wrenching the workshop out of sentence and distance to keep them all in an endless cycle of haircuts and storytelling : their tales of account and myth power a massive mechanical wanderer that is whisking the Barber and his friend Abena , the daughter of Anansi ( Michelle Asante ) , on a quest for vengeance against the gods themselves . The Barber , it turn out , helped spread out the myths of unnumberable gods and folklores throughout human history by create a Nexus , a literal vane of storytelling and culture that disperse their compass and influence but also repose the fundamental cornerstone for human civilisation itself , the human activity of share and developing thousands of eld of stories , pass on through generations . No longer needing him with the Nexus ’ introduction , the gods cast the Barber out , and now he wants to put down it , and take them with it .

Much of this plays out within the confines of Omo ’s barbershop , an infinitely midget infinite for all these big idea to burst out of , even if it ’s also bring out that aver barbershop is presently temporally give the axe and being expect about an alternative dimension by a gargantuan mechanical wanderer . At times , “ The Story and the locomotive engine ” threatens to lose itself in the strains of bandy about all these big , rash ideas , but where episode before it this time of year have hit those military issue , here , it almost becomes part of the metatext ofDoctor Whoitself . After all , as this sequence reminds us , what bigger account is there out there than the Doctor themselves , numberless life history lived over and over ? The Doctor ’s condition as this being who has seen so many histories and future is the Southern Cross of the whole assumption . It ’s why Omo tells the Barber about them in the first berth ; it ’s a story left untold — that the Fugitive Doctor once foretell to exempt Abena from the clutches of her Father-God , but go to do so , telling her and us in a brief present moment that she was enclose up in a account for another time — that create the conflict between the Doctor and Abena in the first shoes .

It ’s how , ultimately , the Doctor negociate to save the day , tempting the Barber with himself as the simplest story ever distinguish : they survive , they die , they are reborn . What hold reach the day in “ The Story and the locomotive ” is not of necessity the Doctor of the Church ’s learning ability or any form of technobabble , it ’s the very fact that they are the asterisk of the story that isDoctor Who , an ongoing , living , breathing narrative that extend across living after living , is shared between generations of people . The Doctor is n’t just a story of potentiality , but one so powerful it manages to overwhelm the Barber ’s railway locomotive , relinquish everyone trapped in the shop and guiding the Barber and Abena aside from their misguided quest for retaliation .

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© BBC/Disney

That might be a story that could ’ve been told with any personification of the Doctor – and that is arguably part of the point , give it ’s the Doctor ’s tale potentiality that evidence key to bilk the Barber ’s plans . But “ The Story and the Engine ” also directly engage with beats that re - retell that this is a tarradiddle that could have only been told by crowd the Doctor ’s story to a post where masses of colour can be part of it , as well . It ’s not just in the yearning for community the Doctor attempt by kick the bucket to Omo ’s shop class in the first property , it becomes even more authoritative when Abena decides to help the Doctor by braiding his whisker with a map to the center of the Spider so he can stop it , absorb on existent - domain historic traditions of braid hair being used to hide messages and map in the era of colonialism and the striver swap . “ The Story and the Engine ” is laser - focused on the power ofDoctor Whoas a story , metatextually or otherwise , but there ’s also a slew of world power in how it choose to tell this story enlace with how it leverages Gatwa ’s identity as the first Black , queer man to be a major actor in that story .

This era ofDoctor Whoin special has been very interested inthe metanarratives of stories , and with performing of cognizance of them for both the audience and our heroes alike . Sometimes it ’s worth celebrating for a minute , as we get to here , that that story can now help connect even more the great unwashed from different backgrounds and welcome them to be a part of it . And that ’s just vital a news report to enjoin with the first mainline Doctor played by a human being of color as any story of prejudice is .

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