Doctor Who The Interstellar Song Contest Review – A Clever But Rushed Tune

It honestly fills me with joy to say that I enjoyed Doctor Who once again this week. I’ve not had the easiest ride with this season, but after last week’s episode finally uplifted things, I had hope that it would continue. As my Doctor Who The Interstellar Song Contest Review will highlight, a unique setting did deliver some great moments, but it was very clear that the team had “other things they wanted to talk about,” and that sacrificed much of the episode’s depth and potential impact.

The idea behind the episode was as simple as it could be. The Doctor and Belinda end up at in the “Harmony Arena” for the 289th International Song Contest, which was being broadcast to three trillion people across the galaxy. Naturally, they had to stay and witness it. If you’re expecting me to criticize them for staying…I’m not. I may be American, but I KNOW the importance of Eurovision to those in Europe and beyond who make this their “must-watch event” every year. In fact, it’s going on right now! Plus, Belinda noted why this show meant a lot to her, so this is indeed the “one time” I grant her permission to NOT want to rush home. After all…how many times do you get to see things like this?

True to its setting, the show did pay tribute to Eurovision via having Rylan as their “forever host” and even having Graham Norton (a BBC icon in his own right) show up via hologram. When you add that to the vast venue, the corporate ads, the singers themselves, and so on, you get a recipe for…something going horribly wrong.

Enter the Hellions (no relation to the X-Men group, I promise), who are an ‘outcast race’ in the minds of the galaxy due to various “unspeakable things” that they’ve been associated with. Well, two of them decided to “be the monsters they were told they were” and use the song contest to literally kill those three trillion people watching. Yes. Really. They were actually going to send them out on a high note. Go figure.

While the “revenge plot” did absolutely fizzle out for reasons I’ll get to, it was genuinely jarring to see the entire audience, including the Doctor, get sucked out into space. It really made me wonder, “How are they going to fix this?” After all, that’s not just something you come back from. Or at least, not in the real universe…

Anyway, with the Hellions trying to kill everyone, The Doctor and Belinda are separated, and for a good chunk of the episode, they actually think the other is dead, or suspended in cryo sleep. That leads to what I feel was the best part of the episode (for a time…): The Doctor’s anger.

Long-time Whovians know that when The Doctor is ticked off, he unleashes hell on anyone in his way. We’ve seen this with many different versions of The Doctor, especially in NuWho, and this was the first time we got to see it with Gatwa, and he truly brought the menace. Seeing him not just outsmart Kid the Hellion but then basically torture him for what he perceived he had done to Belinda and the others was terrifying.

Furthermore, Belinda, knowing she needed to get to him to quell his anger, was a nice touch, as was how they revived everyone in the area via the use of their booths because they just so HAPPENED to have everyone they needed to get things done. How very Doctor Who.

To that end, I did appreciate the two sides of the Hellion conflict via the use of Cora, who was a Hellion in disguise and a singer in the contest. Using her song at the end to “speak out” against the ones who destroyed her homeworld was a nice touch, and showed not only hte power of music, but how sometimes your voice is the greatest weapon you have, even if many are trying to silence it.

All that being said, as I teased earlier in my Doctor Who The Interstellar Song Contest Review, key rushed plotpoints and forced arrivals to tease the final two episodes of the season held the show back from reaching its full potential.

For example, Kid and Wynn, the Hellions, were nice examples of “people being forced to do mass murder to make a point,” but we barely got any meaningful time with them. Kid came off as incredibly one-note, especially in his interactions with The Doctor. We should’ve had to FEEL HIS PAIN, not unlike what they did with Cora in some of her scenes with Belinda. Instead, he was just a villain to defeat.

To that end, The Doctor’s rage storyline was hampered by odd dialogue choices and the return of Susan. As in, the ACTUAL ACTRESS who played Susan Foreman decades ago. Yes, that was her. The Doctor mouthing off to Kid and saying lines like “the ice might just remain there forever” felt totally off because The Doctor has been through FAR worse with his foes and never said anything like that to even his greatest rivals. Yet, this one random person set him off that badly? Plus, remember, Belinda was alive!

Oh, and even with that ending with the song…we don’t really know if anything actually gets resolved. Were the Hellions able to shake off their outcasts label? Did the corporation get punished for what it did? We really don’t know.

As for the Susan “twist” (get it?), it felt so random that NOW is when she would appear to him. It’s another questionable use of lore, and it took time away from other plotlines. As did the return of Mrs. Flood…who’s apparently “The Rani,” another Time Lord whom you might know from the 6th and 7th Doctor’s and their runs. If you didn’t know that, like me, you probably were very confused about their importance.

Finally, and just as importantly: Belinda. Yep. She’s still just…there. Whenever things go wrong, we get the same “I need to get home and see my parents!” line that we’ve heard throughout the season. That’s truly the extent of her character. She’s just “someone who wants to go home” with nothing else really standing out about her. I doubt we’ll get anything meaningful in the final two episodes of the season, and who knows what’ll happen after that!

In the end, my Doctor Who The Interstellar Song Contest Review will end with a positive score because, despite my misgivings about the episode, it was still fun. I’m sure many will have wanted more from the Eurovision setting, and I don’t blame you for that. Just like I won’t blame you if it felt like this episode got “sidelined” in key areas to set up the two-part finale, because i felt that way, too.

There were things to enjoy here, including things I didn’t get to mention, like Gary and Mike. So perhaps…just hum along with the episode and see how you feel by the end of the tune.