The next contains spoilers for “The Devil’s Chord.”
For a present about time (and area) journey interwoven with British popular culture since its begin in 1963, a visit to go to the Beatles is an apparent premise. So apparent that that is the second time we’ve had a “what if” episode hinging on the Fab 4’s cultural affect. In spite of everything, each the Beatles and Physician Who grew to become world cultural exports as Britain flexed its post-imperial comfortable energy. However whereas there’s loads of materials to mine in that premise, this isn’t an episode that’s fascinated about doing that, relegating the Beatles to little greater than window dressing.
This has all the time been a trick in Physician Who’s toolbox, particularly when Russell T. Davies is in cost. He loves dangling an thought, or eye-catching visible, to lure in an viewers earlier than shifting the main target to one thing else. I’m reminded of the kung-fu monks from “Tooth and Claw” which appeared nice within the trailers however had no actual affect on the story. It’s “Tooth and Claw” that “The Devil’s Chord” feels much like — an early season one episode that doesn’t fairly work in and of itself, however does spend numerous its time gesturing to this 12 months’s recurring themes. (FilmStories reported from a current Q&A, the place Davies mentioned that this episode lacked a central plot and was, as an alternative, “Just some subplots.”)
However to know that, and my stance, we’re going to should take somewhat have a look at The Context earlier than we get to inspecting the meat. You see, throughout its historical past, Physician Who has bent itself to suit the imaginative and prescient of its major inventive determine and Davies is a voracious watcher of TV. He’s obsessive about the shape and format of TV as a lot as its content material, and that is mirrored in his work. His episodes usually develop with information studies, CCTV clips and deeper types of exposition revealed via screens. “Bad Wolf” is a superb instance, the place the present lands at a TV studio that’s making sci-fi variations of the then-current pantheon of British actuality TV.
Davies additionally trusts his viewers to instinctively know the unstated guidelines of TV even when they’ll’t identify them. Which is why I believe it’s price “The Devil’s Chord” as an episode that’s, for need of a greater phrase, collapsing in on itself. When Mrs. Flood talks to the digital camera on the finish of “Church on Ruby Road,” it felt Intentionally Mistaken, particularly after she was seemingly unaware of the TARDIS earlier within the episode. Right here, the quite a few fourth wall breaks and lapses in storytelling are equally an intentional signal of How Mistaken Issues Are. What begins out as a by-the-numbers movie star historic rapidly collapses right into a fever dream like Sam Lowry’s descent into insanity on the finish of Brazil.
We open in a live performance corridor in 1925 as a instructor outlines the fundamentals of music concept for a younger baby. He exhibits off that he has “discovered” The Satan’s Chord and, by taking part in it, unleashes Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon), the embodiment of music. Maestro is a godlike elemental pressure and a baby of the Toymaker – featured villain of the sixtieth Anniversary particular episode “The Giggle.” After praising the musician for his or her genius, Maestro then sucks the music out of their coronary heart and eats it like cotton sweet earlier than staring into the digital camera and taking part in the present’s theme tune on the piano.
When the titles finish (discover the theme is taking part in out of the jukebox) it’s clear Ruby has been on the TARDIS for a while. She asks the Physician if it might be potential to go to the recording of the Beatles’ first album on the EMI’s studios on Abbey Highway. Earlier than they open the doorways, she asks if it could be price them becoming much less conspicuously trendy garments they usually spring off to pattern the delights of the TARDIS wardrobe, full with a wig for the Physician.
The pair sneak into George Martin’s producer’s sales space however rapidly spot one thing is mistaken with the scene in entrance of them. Moderately than taking part in any of Please Please Me’s large and recognizable hits, they’re turning out mop-top music about animals. The Physician doesn’t understand it but however Maestro has spent the previous few a long time swallowing all the music out of individuals’s hearts. It’s a genius option to get round the truth that, even with all of the money thrown at Get Again and Disney’s huge financial institution stability, Physician Who nonetheless can’t readily afford to license Beatles songs.
Subsequent door, (well-known British singer / TV presenter / infamous diva) Cilla Black is equally stricken with a case of the muzaks whereas a live performance orchestra is nearly mustering a model of Three Blind Mice. The Physician and Ruby head to the canteen to nook John and Paul to try to discover out what went mistaken with historical past. They then head to the roof with a piano, the place Ruby performs a tune she wrote to assist a pal recover from a breakup. However as soon as the Physician hears Maestro’s giggle, he sprints away, hiding in a close-by basement.
The Physician explains that any villain who laughs is tied to the Toymaker and is an indication of the fractured universe. Preventing the Toymaker in “The Giggle” was sufficiently draining and troublesome, particularly given how highly effective these elemental forces are, that he doesn’t need to do it once more. Maestro is looking for them, however the Physician makes use of his sonic screwdriver to kill all the sound within the space. (The Physician is aware of simply sufficient about how the shape and format of TV works to show the tables on their opponent.) Maestro works out methods to undo the blocking – with some magnificent sound enhancing — however is then distracted from their pursuit of the Physician by an older lady Ruby had impressed to play the piano.
The eagle-eyed amongst you’ll discover that that is the second time in two episodes that Ruby has impressed one other individual to be daring to their detriment. Her phrases have been sufficient to encourage Eric to try to tackle the bogeyman single-handed in “Space Babies,” practically imperiling him. The older lady isn’t so fortunate and will get consumed by Maestro
Due to how lengthy Physician Who has run, it is usually its personal supply materials. Ruby, as soon as they’ve escaped, assumes that every thing is okay as a result of she recollects listening to music as a baby and so subsequently Maestro can’t have received. So, in a scene pulled from “Pyramids of Mars,” the Physician takes her to 2024 within the TARDIS to indicate the wreckage of the alternate future. As a result of whereas she’s protected against the ravages of continuity by the very fact she’s touring via time, the remainder of the universe isn’t so fortunate.
However this flash-forward, in an echo of the assembly with the Toymaker, flips from a visage of a bombed-out London to a stagey set. Maestro arrives behind a white piano to stipulate their plan to rid the universe of music, leaving simply the aeolian tones of the wind brushing in opposition to objects. However the Physician says {that a} universe with out music, unable to precise pleasure or anger via artwork, turns bitter and destroys itself. It is a feeling I can relate to — like when love turns into so painful in its absence that you simply’d fairly disappear into the void than maintain happening. Davies can also be a nihilist so a lot of his episodes have revolved across the darkish face of humanity that reveals itself when denied Earthly pleasures.
Escaping again to the ‘60s, the Doctor and Ruby meet Maestro and find the walls of reality are collapsing. Murray Gold’s swirling soundtrack isn’t simply the background music, it’s bled into the material of the present itself. The Physician and Ruby begin looking for a chord that can bind Maestro with the Mrs. Mills piano, a (actual) fixture of Abbey Highway’s studio. As they play, the notes are rendered floating over the piano, however the pair fail to determine the ultimate notice earlier than Maestro turns up.
Maestro begins attacking, throwing round musical scores as weapons and hurling the piano into the corridor. It’s right here that the episode’s coherence begins to sag, the scenes get longer and odder, a wonky model of a typical monster-of-the-week TV present conclusion. The stress builds, and all seems misplaced, till John and Paul come across the piano within the hallway. They’re capable of see the notes hanging within the air over the piano and with their, uh, innate musical nous, and full the chord to bind the villain. However earlier than they’re whisked away, Maestro has time to disclose they aren’t the one one of many Toymaker’s minions coming, and “the one who waits” is lurking within the background.
Out of nowhere, the episode ends with a giant musical quantity that options the solid dancing via the Abbey Highway units, delighted on the return of music. Even the steps of the highway crossing mild up because the Physician and Ruby minimize a rug throughout them. I can’t work out if it’s merely an indulgent sequence, or one other large signal that the present’s construction is breaking down. That the Physician and Ruby are blind to the obvious Wrongness of all of it hints on the latter, particularly given the deeper context of the tune’s title — see under.
There are different indicators that Physician Who is collapsing into its personal TV collection, together with the casting selections. The older lady who performs the piano is June Hudson, the present’s costume designer from 1978 to 1980 — who famously redesigned the fourth Physician’s costume. The musician on the piano through the dance quantity is Murray Gold, whereas the figures the Physician and Ruby dance with on the finish are Strictly Come Dancing stars Shirley Ballas and Johannes Radebe. Possibly the massive nemesis haunting the collection shall be some type that might threaten its existence as a TV present itself.
It’s price saying that Physician Who has an uneasy relationship with “big” villain performances which might flip onerous into hamminess. However Jinkx Monsoon manages to pitch Maestro as simply large and flamboyant sufficient to steal each scene they’re in, however by no means too foolish. It’s additionally the correct facet of charming and magnetic, and whereas they don’t have wherever close to sufficient time to correctly face off in opposition to Ncuti Gatwa’s Physician, it’s nonetheless a terrific match-up.
The issue of Susan Twist
As a lot as I don’t need to get into the weeds right here, it’s potential these things goes to come back up later that I have to flag it. Physician Who has been working for greater than 60 years with a revolving door of inventive figures who paid little-to-no consideration to consistency. A handy option to justify these is by suggesting time journey, by its very nature, would all the time mess up your private historical past. However, in latter days, the present has usually most well-liked to miss the thornier components of its backstory, just like the existence of the Physician’s granddaughter, Susan.
When the present began, the Physician was joined on his adventures by Susan and a pair of lecturers who adopted her residence one evening. Lengthy earlier than any point out of Time Lords or Gallifrey, she was simply the child determine who usually wound up needing rescuing. Then, in “The Dalek Invasion of Earth,” the Physician exiles her to twenty second century Earth as a result of she needs to kiss a boy. His goodbye speech has been lengthy since de-contextualized and made to sound noble. However it’s primarily him going “yeah, you’re interested in boys now, so you go make babies (eww babies) and stay here while I go off running around the universe.” Sure, it’s a bit yikes.
This ties in with a small physique of writing about this trope in kids’s literature about the best way feminine characters are handled when reaching maturity. Together with a sexual awakening, that is usually used as justification to dump them out of the narrative. It’s even referred to as “The Problem of Susan,” albeit named after Neil Gaiman’s rebuttal of what occurs to Susan on the finish of The Chronicles of Narnia. In case you’d wish to be taught extra, you’ll be able to learn Elizabeth Sandifer’s essay on “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” which talks about this in some element.
Why is that this related? As a result of when Davies’ returned to Physician Who, he solid the identical actress in two completely different episodes. Susan Twist performed Mrs. Merridew in “Wild Blue Yonder” and was seen once more in “The Church on Ruby Road,” which despatched keen-eyed followers right into a frenzy. She pops up right here as a tea girl and, on the roof of Abbey Highway; the Physician even talks in regards to the reality one other of his incarnations resides in Shoreditch in 1963 together with his granddaughter. That the episode ends with a musical quantity referred to as “There’s always a Twist at the end” with Ncuti Gatwa winking to digital camera is as large a neon signal as you possibly can hope for.
Physician Who followers — by no means ones to not scour the textual content, metatext and paratext of every episode — took Twist’s repeated casting as a signpost. They assumed, not unjustifiably, that this collection would function a twist about Susan, and that Davies was subtly signaling this to diehard followers. Given Twist’s look right here, and that we get a tune saying the quiet half out loud, appears to vindicate these theories. Until, after all, it’s all a triple bluff, however I’m unsure how anybody may sport that efficiently. The one query that is still, after all, is what Davies’ plan is, and the way precisely it’ll play out within the subsequent six episodes.
