REVIEW: Doctor Who The Interstellar Song Contest Falls Flat and Lacks Depth
When you heard that this season of Doctor Who was to have an episode that heavily parodied Eurovision set to air on the same day as Eurovision, you were probably either at peak excitement or the depths of dread, depending on how you feel about the annual song contest. As it happens, I quite like Eurovision, but even I felt that the overwhelming worship of the event this episode threw our way was a bit much.
By all means, have Graham Norton make a fun little cameo as an AI hologram, that's fun, but you're really throwing Rylan at us too? Not just a character played by Rylan, mind, but the actual Rylan, who has been cryogenically frozen for 900 years and is revived annually just to host this song contest. That is profoundly stupid and raises so many questions that I never want any of the answers to. You really couldn't have just thrown on a bit of alien makeup and made him a different character? I like it when this show breaks the rules to have a bit of fun, but this found and then shattered my limit.
Cora singing on stage with dancers in gold outfits behind her.
Cora singing on stage with dancers in gold outfits behind her.
BBC
The episode didn't do much to win me over from there either, as it works so hard to have a self-indulgent and "impactful" moment at the end that it rushes every single step along the way. What doesn't help is that this rushed plot centers around a ridiculously overused sci-fi trope – space racism – and does not do anything unique with it.
Things starting off at a frantic pace was a good idea, it just didn't need to carry through the whole episode. We get a few minutes to bathe in the vibes, and then all hell breaks loose almost immediately, which is the right way to kick things off. We don't need to see the intricacies of how these two people hacked and infiltrated a massive space station, I like that we just got on with the action as hundreds of thousands of people get sucked up and ejected into space all in one go. The silent visual of the bodies spreading out into space was beautiful in a very disturbing way, and I loved it.
The problem is that the episode ramps back up way too quickly to let the implications of it sink in, especially as it's quickly exposited to us that some gravity shield is keeping them alive for now. Don't get me wrong, it would've been way too dark for all of those people to actually have been massacred like that, but at least hold us in some suspense.
Rylan and an cat-like alien standing on stage as people in the foreground wave flags.
Rylan and an cat-like alien standing on stage as people in the foreground wave flags.
BBC
Speaking of, the episode jumps up and down to reveal its own twist way too early. As soon as the Helia are even mentioned in Cora's presence, she starts to act forlorn, which makes it unbelievably obvious that she's secretly one of them. In fact, I'd go one step further and say that the way she acts tells you everything you need to know about her character motivations for the rest of the episode, which would be a really good bit of writing if it wasn't outright explained ten minutes later and treated like this big reveal.
You may have noticed that I've gotten this far into the review without once mentioning our main villain, and that's because they barely matter. Kid is a member of an oppressed race who was driven to terrorism by the acts of the corporation that destroyed his home planet and vilified his race. I'm not saying that's not a good basis for a character's motivations, but it is one that's been used hundreds of times before, and this episode does not give us any kind of spin or unique angle on it, which is what Doctor Who is normally really good at.
Side note, but I can't get over how the Helia look almost identical to the Clemar from Metaphor: ReFantazio. I know this episode was almost definitely filmed before that game came out, but it's all I could think about whenever they were on screen.
Kid and Wynn standing in the broadcast control room.
Kid and Wynn standing in the broadcast control room.
BBC
The lack of depth is in part thanks to how little time everything gets to breathe. While that frantic pace was a good way to start the episode, it should not have carried on that way. The villain being disposed of with almost 15 minutes left in the episode was a bad call because it means all of their scenes are squeezed for time, and as a result, the Doctor's arc in this episode falls flat, too.
The Doctor snapping and abandoning his "never be cruel" principles is not at all justified by the narrative. Kid's plan to kill three trillion people is awful and worthy of the Doctor's rage, but because everything is so rushed, we don't get to feel that cold-hearted cruelty rise up in the Doctor throughout the episode, which makes his violent outburst upon catching Kid feel entirely unearned.
It's a shame because Ncuti gives a great performance in this scene – the nonchalance with which he destroys the Delta Wave and unravels Kid's plan as it gradually transitions into unrestrained malice is fantastic – but the story didn't put in the work for the moment to feel as impactful as it should have. The Doctor getting visions of Susan in his mind is really strange too. After the whole last season used her as a red-herring for the finale, I don't know if this is foreshadowing something or just a weird thing inserted into this episode, but I guess we'll have to wait and see on that one.
The Doctor floating out in space.
The Doctor floating out in space.
BBC
Cora's final song should've been such a better moment than it was, but because everything was so heavily condensed to give this moment the time it needed, it doesn't connect like it was trying to. I get that Eurovision has always pushed the theme of uniting through music, and it was a good choice to make a point of that in this episode, but after the lacklustre story that preceded it, it falls flat. It also didn't need to be quite so self-indulgent. I mean, come on, silence broken by one person clapping, which builds into a massive ovation? I know Doctor Who likes to embrace its cheesy side from time to time, but that's really pushing it.
However, the final few minutes where we address the seasonal arc are fantastic. Using the Graham Norton hologram to tell us that the Earth was turned to ash on May 24th, 2025 is just the right kind of silly for this show, and cutting straight to black on the explosion – even skipping the credits – was a great touch that gets me hyped for the first episode of our two-part finale next week.
These past two seasons of Doctor Who have done a brilliant job of embracing the fun side of the show, which is why I'm so disappointed that this one was a dud, as it had arguably the greatest potential of the lot to be an enjoyably wacky ride. Instead, it tried too hard to be silly while contrasting it with a dark and serious plot that didn't get the room it needed to breathe to be engaging.
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