Doctor Who: Kerblam!

Sports Direct is bad…and terrorism is good, so long as you direct it at the right company.

That’s the message of this episode, which is slightly confusing as far as responsibility goes.

So, the plot.

The Doctor receives fez from the titular delivery service that was apparently ordered by Eleven. It contains a note calling for help that the Doctor acts on in order to progress the plot.

The episode is alright even if it does carry over some of the ham-fistedness of last week.

The message is obvious and adequately delivered, but for the Doctor spelling it out right at the end which was unnecessary. Why work the message into the themes of the episode, if you were just going to run through it in dialogue later.

Lee Mack also has a cameo in this episode, contrary to what the post-credit guest star run down from episode one would have you believe. He gets to tell a few jokes and I suppose it’s an improvement on the last time they just threw a comedian into an episode.

Everyone is given something to do in the episode, with clear roles for all the cast to occupy. Ryan has another piece of back-story added, as he used to work for Sports Direct. I’m a little bit worried that this is going to become a habit of the writers, in terms of just throwing things into Ryan’s past. What happened to his vlogging?

The Doctor finally manages to wrestle back the limelight after being overshadowed in both the preceding episodes. Although, her moment is slightly undermined by the fact that she’s written to be unsure of herself. She can’t be the moral authority of an exchange and simultaneously unsure if she’s saying the right thing. It seems that writer Pete McTighe has taken more than a fez from Matt Smith’s run. But the reason that Smith could pull off the mad man in a box routine was that he dropped it when a serious moment arose. That sort of thing ensured that the tone shifted at the right time.

Aside from that, the Doctor’s stage presence is massively improved, but it’s too far into the series for her to still be trying to figure out her personality.

The special effects are…clearly “within budget” particularly in the massive distribution scene.

Overall, an improvement, but the bar wasn’t exactly high.