Doctor Who
Rating: 
Showtrial
Rating:
The Doctor will finally see your case. Jodie Whittaker, the Time Lord, has not been available for face-toface appointments since March last year.
But she’s back! She’s now taking on a deadly contagion with her sonic screwscrew as Doctor Who(BBC1) is back. The first episode of a six part story featured Halloween trimmings. However, the inspiration appears to have been Covid-19.
Swarm, the virulent villain, escaped from a locked-down planet. Swarm vaporized the scientists who were supposed be keeping an eye.
As its powers grew, spikes appeared from its head. It looked like a coronavirus on its legs.
Jodie Whittaker battles deadly contagion in Doctor Who with her sonic wrench.
Obsessive fans of the show — Whovians, as they like to be known — will tell you the Doctor has faced a parasitic virus called the Swarm before, back in the Tom Baker era of the late Seventies.
The original monster looked almost like a giant green Prawn. This new version is more frightening and has more expensive special effects. Any object it touches is blown to tiny red particles like a sneeze inside a bowl of potpourri.
A fleet of seven billion spaceships race to protect Earth and form an impenetrable shield. . . One UFO per human. (Quite a nifty metaphor for the Covid vaccine — we all get one and everybody’s safe.)
The lockdown puppy is the real weapon against the virus. Chris Chibnall, the writer, knows this and so the rescue fleet is manned by fluffy 7-foot-high dogs. Lupa is an alien species. But they are clearly labradoodles wearing space armor.
Chibnall has never been completely at ease with intergalactic fantasies. Broadchurch creator, Chibnall is more comfortable with psychological plots and weaving multiple storylines with multiple characters.
He is able to play to his strengths by reviving the Doctor Who tradition that consists of a single story over several weeks. It is not easy at first. We met a sadistic capitalist from Regency England, a museum guide who was ludicrously lured into a haunted mansion, and a couple who shared a bungalow in Alaska.
John Bishop, comedian, was the main new face. He was a saintly man with empty fridge and cupboards, even though volunteering at a food bank. He said, “Other people need soup more than I,” with nobility.
In the end, you won’t find Talitha, a spoiled brat, volunteering at a food bank. Showtrial (BBC1). Her drug dealers are her only commoners.
Celine Buckens, the actress, portrays a convincing character as a poor little girl with a lot of money who can easily be portrayed as two-dimensional. Talitha, who is mocking police for suspecting her in the disappearance a fellow student, is entitled, immature, and a screaming snob.
She is also vulnerable and insecure. It is easy to see her being exploited by Dhillon Harwood (Joseph Payne), who is her closest friend.
Her loveless father Damian is even more starkly drawn — an emotionless, greedy bully. He is a property developer and has no personality. James Frain plays Damian, a cartoon villain specialist who specializes in subtle and deep portraits.
Showtrial takes a familiar theme, the hunt for a missing woman, and twists it in unexpected ways — such as giving the investigators pithy nicknames: DI Butch Cassidy and Sweet Baby James.
I’m in. This one looks great.