Let's get the gripe out of the way first because my take on this episode is going to be almost uniformly positive. But I don't know why Jack Harkness is in this. Even moving passed John Barrowman's recent questionable comments and his weird insistence that Steven Moffat has some sort of vendetta against him, Jack's presence feels incredibly cynical. He contributes nothing except to dump exposition and tease future adventures. Let's face it, his character always was a bit much, even in the mid-naughties but he feels incredibly out of place in 2020 Doctor Who. Twitter loved it, but the whole cameo left me feeling cold. It's long passed time that this era of the show stopped trying to recapture the greatness of the Russell T Davies era (the viewing figures suggest that this isn't remotely working) and actually strive to do something original. The strength of this episode is how it seeks to upend the rules of Doctor Who in order to do something different; it succeeds when it's looking forward, not when it's looking back.
However, accepting that, Fugitive of the Judoon is pretty unequivocally excellent. A fitting Episode 5 comparison would be Series 9's The Girl Who Died. That similarly starts out like a mid-season bit of fluff, a filler episode albeit it with an interesting premise and characters, before gradually revealing that it's got some quite profound revelations about the Doctor. And while The Girl Who Died is one of my favourite episodes of Doctor Who that this can't quite live up to, I'm impressed that it manages to have a damn good try.
The advertised return of the Judoon proves to be nothing more than narrative sleight of hand to make the audience look one way while the story sets up much bigger and more important reveals. That said, it's a welcome reappearance. The Judoon have always been one of the more effective original monsters of the revived show, and the improved animatronics help give their leader a more defined character than before (I love the little gasp that it makes when Allan gives it a shove). They strike the right balance between seeming genuinely threatening and bringing some much needed lightheartedness to the story, particularly when they are arguing with the Doctor about who is in charge and bargaining how long she has for arbitration.
About halfway through we think we've got the measure of the situation. The Judoon are pursuing an alien criminal who has disguised themselves as a human. It's almost entirely the narrative beats from Smith and Jones and the expectation is that it will resolve itself in a very similar way; one of the guest characters will reveal themselves as the villain and the Doctor/the Judoon will deal with them accordingly. Only that's not what happens and instead we get one of the boldest twists that Doctor Who has attempted in a number of years. Ruth turns out to be the Doctor. One of my main complaints with this era is how basic it feels; everything that happens happens because it's the most obvious and (often as a result) the least interesting choice. That's not the case here.
In fact, the Ruth!Doctor is something of a revelation. She seems utterly in control of events, contrasting with the Thirteenth Doctor, who often has felt like someone who drifts from one bad situation to another without having any say in the matter. She takes an active role in events, from holding her own against the Judoon to sabotaging a Gallifreyan weapon in order to turn the tables on Gat. Her mere existence poses some pretty existential questions for the show to answer about how many lives the Doctor has lived, the history of the Time Lords and the Doctor's relationship with them. But I have to admit that when she strode across the garden of the lighthouse to triumphantly declare that she was the Doctor, I was totally buying it.
It's pretty much impossible to work out at this point where Ruth fits into the Doctor's timeline, and it'll be interesting to see whether Chibnall can make the explanation work without descending too far into an utterly myopic quagmire of continuity. All we can say for certain is that this new Doctor and our current Doctor are far from fans of each other, and this conflict brings out Jodie Whittaker's best performance in the role. There's something incredibly fresh and distinctive about their relationship, in a way that the show has never quite managed before between different incarnations of the Doctor. Even with the War Doctor, there was still a certain level of cheeky banter and camaraderie between him and his successors, but these two could not feel more different. There's plenty more mileage to be explored with this dynamic, which is lucky as it's pretty much certain that we'll see Ruth again before the end of the season.
The story is filled with striking visuals, in a way that the brown and grey palette of earlier Chibnall era episodes just felt a little washed out and uninspiring. The Judoon appearing on the streets of Gloucester and menacing the local population with the cathedral in the background. The energy of the Chameleon Arch streaming out of the broken glass and into Ruth. The lighthouse that neatly mirrors the look of the TARDIS. The Doctor discovering the familiar shape of a police box under the soil. For the first time in a long while, these are moments that actually stick in the memory after the episode has ended. Jack's ship looks terrible though.
This is another episode where the companions are superfluous to requirements. Realising that it has nothing to do with them, the story maneuvers Graham, Ryan and Yaz out of the way. This helps prevent it from feeling overstuffed and allows the writers to focus on the central relationship between the two Doctors. As much as it is disappointing for the three companions to once again be given so little to do, this time it does at least feel like it's in the service of a much more interesting narrative.
And in many ways, this is an unfinished narrative. Its greatness is predicated on the promise of future greatness. If viewed in isolation without the rest of the season, this would seem strange and incomplete, and there is a lingering sense of dissatisfaction that none of the story is really resolved here. But taken in context it succeeds absolutely in what it is intended to do, which is to confound expectations at every turn and deliver some shocking revelations about the Doctor and her personal history. Doctor Who feels unpredictable again and that is to Patel and Chibnall's great credit.
Random musings
- "Look at you, and your platoon of Judoon...near that lagoon" may be the first time I've properly laughed out loud in this series. It's a riff on an old RTD joke, but it works. There's a few funny moments involving the Judoon, like their totally arbitrary countdown on the temporal isolator. In fact, the whole episode feels like a throwback to when the show took itself a bit less seriously.
- My 'defensive of Moffat' tendencies started to tingle at people lapping up the amount of continuity this episode throws at the audience when we heard endless complaints about it under the previous showrunner. It's mostly stylishly done here, but I do wonder what casual viewers will have thought at the sheer amount of callbacks and references.
- Yaz remembered she was a police officer for a moment there. Fittingly, she was almost immediately teleported away before it actually became important.
- I see Jack's as much of a sex pest as before. Did I mention I really don't like his cameo...?
- "Beware the Lone Cyberman. Don't give it what it wants." We're getting to River Song levels of unhelpfully cryptic. Spoilers, I guess?
Fugitive of the Judoon is a bold statement of intent, demonstrating that this era can be as exciting and unpredictable as the two that preceded it. The online response when this was broadcast was probably the most uniformly positive I've seen since The Doctor Falls and that was nearly three years ago. It's not quite the best episode of Jodie Whittaker's tenure so far. It's a close second to Rosa, because that felt more like a complete story, whereas this is an excellent episode of Doctor Who that can't quite stand on its own without its wider context. The season still has a lot of work to do to make me content with the story emotionally, but there's no doubt that I'm intrigued to find out where all this is going. After two weeks of inconsequential filler, we're back in business. Let's see if it can stick the landing.
Rating
9/10
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