Doctor Who 2024: Boom

Another review of a new episode from the 2024 season of Doctor Who starring Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson. This is drawn from discussions about the show with my Generation Star Wars collaborator John Hood in the dedicated Whovians conference on The WELL. See here for more details including a public preview in the Inkwell section that’s free-to-all to read, and for details of a special offer of a free three-month membership to The WELL so you can join in.

2024.E3 “Boom”

After the candy floss nonsense (with a dark centre) of “Space Babies” and the song and dance fun of Maestro and “The Devil’s Chord” both pushed the boundaries of what fans expect and are prepared to accept from Doctor Who, we were back on much more familiar ground with the third story “Boom”, penned by former showrunner Steven Moffat. It’s his first contribution to the show since he left in 2017 and on so many levels there is no mistaking his hallmark on the episode which could only be a Moffat script. That said there were one or two additional bits that felt like they might have come from current showrunner Russell T Davies making a suggestion here or a tweak there. Or perhaps that’s us being too picky, our expectations too high, or the familiarity of all the scripts Moffat wrote while in charge breeding a certain resentful familiarity with Moffat’s box of tricks in hindsight?

The basic concept is that the Doctor runs onto a battleground and immediately steps on a landmine, meaning he can’t move a muscle for the rest of the episode. Only Moffat would have the chutzpah to take an actor universally acknowledged as the most high-energy and kinetic to play the role and promptly nail him to the spot for a whole episode. But it’s a magnificent conceit and Gatwa’s acting (more terrified than we’ve ever seen the Doctor before) is outstanding. The whole thing is a callback to a moment in the Tom Baker classic “Genesis of the Daleks” when the Doctor did exactly the same thing. Careless! Time has moved on, however, and this is a very sophisticated mine full of advanced features – and flashing lights, because people like flashing lights in the showroom when they’re buying weapons of mass destruction.

That’s just one of many jabs the episode makes about the weapons industry and about corporate capitalism in a wider sense, such as an ambulance doing a cost benefit analysis of a casualty and concluding that the expense of two weeks recuperation can’t be justified even with a full recovery and therefore euthanises him on the spot. Right wingers everywhere will cheer such a level-headed approach to social care funding. “Boom” is a reminder of the Calpdi-era episode “Oxygen” in its searing scorn for such cynical inhuman business practices.

Faith is another target in Moffat’s crosshairs with the entire problem in the episode being caused the the combatants (a detachment of ordained marines) fighting because their faith means they don’t have to ask questions or use their own judgement; but the minute the Doctor figures it out they suddenly need proof after all. The Doctor softens this stance at the end to provide succour to a young orphaned child (and the audience at home) and the solution to the story is provided by the power of a father’s love which appears a little too schmaltzy for Moffat, although his stories can veer into this territory (the fairy tale ending of season 5 for example) even without RTD’s nudging.

But it certainly seems like this is more of a collaboration between Moffat and RTD than in the days when they worked together at the start of NuWho. Back then Moffat was the ‘impact player’ brought in to do a stand-along contribution such as “The Empty Child” or “Blink” and walk off with all the plaudits and awards while leaving RTD in the shade doing the heavy lifting. In “Boom” we get more snow falling (and stopping), more references to the Doctor being an orphan and a dad, and these are coming so regularly in 2024 it’s hard not to believe they have an overall purpose and final destination in mind.

While by far the best episode of the season so far, “Boom” isn’t perfect. It’s hard to muck up a ticking time bomb plot and Moffat certainly doesn’t do that. But although there’s strong good material for Ruby in the first half, the decision to render her unconscious for the second seems a waste. It would have been better if the young girl Splice had been the one to be injured leaving the Doctor and Ruby as a two-hander and minimising the whining adolescent’s part (yes, I know, she lost her dad in the opening title sequence, so she had a right to whinge, I’m not heartless!). You need someone to provide information and exposition so Mundy Flynn’s screen time is justified, especially when you learn that she’s played by Varada Sethu who has a bigger part still to play in the Whoniverse. But they’re all upstaged by the ambulance avatar, which is played by an actor that has been in every episode of the run so far (plus a Tennant special) leaving many to wonder if there will be a Twist at the end too.

But overall this was very much a return of the very best days of Doctor Who. If you don’t like this one then maybe you never liked the show at all, because it rarely reaches these heights. It gives us a lot of anticipation about the next episode, 73 Yards, which is described as a Welsh folk horror – or The Wicker Man with a (different) accent – penned by little known newcomer Russell T Davies. Let’s see how the young lad does in the big footsteps of the Grand Moff.

Doctor Who streams on Disney+ where available with new episodes released on Fridays, and on BBC iPlayer in the UK with a broadcast on BBC One on Saturdays. A DVD and Blu-ray release will follow in the summer.