22-04-2025
Review: Doctor Who Lux is a Hilarious Visual Spectacle
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In the build up to this season of Doctor Who, this episode was the most heavily marketed and it's easy to see why. With our main villain being a 2D animated character coming into the real world, there was bucket loads of potential on the table for some extremely creative stuff, and thankfully, Lux lives up to that potential.
Where last week we got an episode that felt rushed because it had to fulfill the function of introducing us to Belinda, this week's episode was perfectly paced, allowing her to exist in the adventure rather than stand out from it. It makes for an episode where each little mystery is solved at the perfect point, giving the whole episode a constant sense of forward momentum, rather than the staggered narrative we got last week.
Mr Ring-a-Ding, a 2D animated character, standing on a stage with the Doctor and Belinda.
Mr Ring-a-Ding, a 2D animated character, standing on a stage with the Doctor and Belinda.
BBC
Mr Ring-a-Ding is a brilliant main villain in the same vein as the Maestro, where the performance alone is enough to make the episode entertaining. The animation perfectly apes the style of the cartoons of the '50s and Alan Cumming's overly energetic performance is perfect for the character.
Him being another member of the Pantheon of Discord established last season is a great choice too. While these gods are all-powerful and allow us to break the bounds of science-fiction a bit, I like that they don't always have to be series-finale threats, and can instead show up at any time as a monster of the week. It gives the writers more room to play with these ideas.
Russell T. Davies has a lot of fun with the concept of Lux too. As soon as the Doctor and Belinda get transported into the animated world you know you're in for a treat. Setting up the Scooby Doo reference as a throwaway joke at the beginning led to a great payoff when they became characters animated in that style and while I wish we could've played around a bit more in this 2D space, I enjoy the direction it took.
The Doctor and Belinda as animated characters on an animate Miami street.
The Doctor and Belinda as animated characters on an animate Miami street.
BBC
Trying to mess with the film reel while trapped inside is a great concept and also allowed Davies to inject a whole host of filmmaking puns that never failed to put a smile on my face — somewhere he's got a whole notebook full of them and I'd pay to read it. We then inevitably ended with a bunch of fourth-wall breaks, but I didn't expect them to put it to the level of the Doctor coming out into someone's living room and meeting "Doctor Who" fans.
I can see some people really not liking this scene, and I admit it does have a faint whiff of the show disappearing up its own backside, but the meta jokes about the show and its fans are so good that I don't care. It perhaps strays a little too close to the line of outright mocking fans versus just poking fun at them, but it gets away with it by revealing that it's just a part of Lux's trap and that these fans are "the kind of characters that don't have surnames".
Once we're back into the real world we go straight into an action-packed finale that once again pushes the boundaries of visual effects. As Lux absorbs the Doctor's regeneration energy he slowly transforms from a 2D character into a 3D model. This scene is just pure showing off from the VFX team and it's glorious as he first becomes a blueprint where you can see the polygons before transforming into an extremely high-fidelity 3D model, turning all that 2D charm into a disgusting form as he becomes way too realistic.
Mr Ring-a-Ding's giant face pressing against the screen while coming out of a cinema screen.
Mr Ring-a-Ding's giant face pressing against the screen while coming out of a cinema screen.
BBC
The fact that putting him in contact with sunlight was all it took to defeat him was a little strange. I get the idea of "humans are 60% water, but we can still drown," but if Lux absorbing sunlight would make him so overfed as to expand beyond the confines of the universe and cease to exist, I question what his actual plan was. I suppose that's the point of these beings that come from outside of our universe — we can't comprehend how they operate because they do so by different universal laws. However, it still would've been nice to know exactly what Lux planned to do if he succeeded in draining the Doctor dry.
That's not really what this episode is about, though. This is one where the visual spectacle and weird fourth-wall-breaking sections stand head and shoulders above everything else, making for an extremely memorable adventure that embraces the silly side of Doctor Who. It's one that I can see myself coming back and rewatching quite a lot in the years to come, just because it puts a smile on my face.
