Doctor Who: The Tsuranga Conundrum

There comes a point in every era of Doctor Who where the new showrunner produces a bad episode. For Russell T. Davies, that was Aliens of London. For Steven Moffat it was The Beast Below. For Chris Chibnall it's The Tsuranga Conundrum.

The episode starts out well. After being blown up by a sonic mine, the Doctor and her friends are transported to The Tsuranga, a medical spaceship. For the first fifteen minutes of the episode, the Doctor, in a dazed and confused state, tries to work out where she and her friends are and how they can escape. It's a nice sequence of building up mystery, getting a sense of location and introducing our guest cast for the week.

The Tsuranga is soon under attack from a tiny alien called the P'ting. This little creature looks cute but is actually a deadly creature that eats anything and cannot be touched. This was a nice little creation and kudos to Tim Price, who worked on the Doctor Who writes room, for coming up with it.

The rest of the episode is about everyone on board trying to get the P'ting off the ship and make it safely to the medical station. At the same time, the other patients get their own little problems to deal with. A former General having to admit her pilot problem. A male pregnancy and Ryan and Graham coming to terms with their own dad. This is where the episode really start to go wrong.  For all that we're meant to believe the crew are in mortal danger, everyone gets time to stop for long chats. There is no sense that the Space Ship is getting worse.

Jodie Whittaker's Doctor wasn't given so much Matt Smith dialogue this week but she does lack authority. She bows down to the medical staff member, Astos when he talks about exploring. There is also a scene where she and General Cicero are trying to talk the crew and the General seems to have more authority. I never felt like Jodie's Doctor was really in charge.

Ryan and Graham get to bond this week. Ryan deals with issues of fatherhood. Graham gets to be the comic relief, hoping to deliver a baby based on watching Call the Midwife.

After all her character development last week, Yaz is the one who is once again given very little to do. She guards the reactor and kicks the P'ting and that's about it.

This episode felt like a dull episode of Star Trek. We had spaceships, an android who looked like Data and a Space Station. The tone was all misplaced. Every character was earnestly talking technobabble. There is a reference to CERN which was the only good scene.

The only other good thing about the episode was the music. Segun Akinola's score carried the episode, generating tension where there was none in the script.

Rating = 5/10