Doctor Who: Lux

"I’ve toppled worlds. Sometimes I wait for people to topple the world. Until then, I live in it, and I shine."

The Doctor trips the light fandango. Or at least the light fan-psychotico. Actually, the light kind of trips him. There are fans, though.

To begin with, I should say that I generally avoid any other responses or reviews to an episode until after I've written my own. This is because I'm terribly influenced by peer pressure and if I stand next to other people's opinions I tend to pick up the flavor of them. Like a mushroom. So, gentle reader, just know that going into this that I haven't checked online to see what the general feeling about 'Lux' is, although I expect that there are people out there having big feelings about it.

I'm dancing around it, so I'm just going to say it baldly. I really liked the section with Lizzie, Hassan, and Robyn. We're going to dive into it in a little bit, but we've known each other awhile, and I want to always be honest with you. I feel like it's important that you knew that up front.

Lizzie, Hassan, and Robyn aside, let's take a look at the rest of the episode. The first obvious thing to say is that Alan Cumming is an absolute treasure and we should all try to remind ourselves never to take him for granted. He does this amazing combination of camp, threatening, charming, and scary that no one else can really pull off. If you received an invitation to dinner at his place, you wouldn't be entirely sure whether you're the guest or the entree, and you'd go anyway. That's not a vibe that everyone can pull off.

Miami, Florida, USA, 1952 is a location that we've never really been near before. The closest I can think of is Cape Kennedy in 'Day of the Moon,' and in that one the location was chosen because that's where the space launch happened. The other contender that leaps to mind is 'Rosa,' but in that story the location, time, and specific events that take place there are the entire point. Here, Florida in 1952 is a real place in which the atmosphere is important to the story being told but isn't in itself the story. If that makes sense. And it works. This is, obviously, the first time that we've ever had an entirely non-white TARDIS team, which makes it the perfect time for them to explore some times and places in which that would be a problem without, say, Graham on hand to give them an out.

Which is to say that I really like the way that this episode handles race and its implications in Miami of 1952. Belinda is rightfully angry at the overt racism of segregation, but the Doctor is instead just sadly aware of it. He's even strangely respectful of the practices of the era – particularly when initially approaching Mr. Pye, the projectionist. He opens with an acknowledgement that he and Belinda are violating the segregated space because he needs Mr. Pye to be approachable. He has no idea how Mr. Pye feels abour segregation or race, and he's fully aware that they're in the middle of a dangerous situation in which he can either stand up to systemic racism which he knows he can't do anything about at that moment, or be respectful to it and deal with the emergency at hand.

That's an interesting position for them to put the Doctor in, because there really isn't a good answer to it. Obviously, showing the Doctor being deferential to segregation and discrimination feels fundamentally wrong, but his explanation to Belinda – that sometimes the best that you can do in the face of an unjust system is to live in it and still shine – really resonates. Particularly for anyone who's ever had to live within a system that openly discriminates against them.

As for Mr. Ring-A-Ding, aka Lux Imperator, God of Light, he works as an effectively threatening villain. It's notable, though, that I could never really shake the idea that his being 'God of Light' was completely unnecessary. He would work just as well as some kind of 'mysterious alien light being,' which would eliminate the need for so much of the 'one of the Pantheon' stuff that feels shoehorned in. For example, we get the word 'harbinger' in big letters, but we don't actually have a harbinger. Which is fine, the story works better without adding another character who would only exist to satisfy my pedantry on this point, but then we also have the return of the Giggle, just to facilitate the reveal that Mr. Ring-A-Ding is one of the Gods. Except that the Giggle was never previously an 'Oh, all the gods do this' sort of thing. It wasn't even a recurring theme of the Toymaker when you come right down to it. It was part of one thing he did that one time. It's only brought up here to try to make the pantheon feel like more of a cohesive whole.

Which is disappointing, because if you disregard the parts of the script about Lux being a God and all the Pantheon references what we have is a very tight, disciplined script. The Doctor and Belinda arrive at a random place, quickly take care of a bit of season-arc business about which we'll talk more in a moment, and while they're doing that discover a local mystery about fifteen people disappearing at the movie theater. And, the Doctor being the Doctor, they're compelled to solve the mystery and free the people from the living cartoon that disappeared them all. The end.

Still and all, what we do have here is a lot of fun. I'm not terribly sure that a being made of living light would logically have the ability to transform people into living cartoons, the way that the episode kind of implies that they obviously would be able to do, but the cartoon Doctor and Belinda sequence is fun, doesn't last long enough to out-stay its welcome, and their having to open up emotionally in order to 'become three dimensional' was a nice visual conceit for forcing them to reveal some plot relevant truths to each other.

And if I'm unsure that being able to turn people into cartoons logically tracks, then I'm definitely skeptical about sending people into alternate realities. Not that I particularly care if it logically tracks, since the episode is confident enough in the way it presents things that I completely bought into it at the time. It's only in hindsight that I started to wonder about the logic of it. However, again, the fakeout 'return to reality' doesn't outlast its welcome, and unlike Belinda I really enjoy the 'dream within a dream' trope.

OK, we've gotten there at last. Let's talk about the fans.

I had actually just said, 'If they come out of our TV set and into the living room, I'm going to have a lot of questions' to my partner, when the Doctor and Belinda did indeed break out of the TV screen and into a viewer's living room. Not mine, sadly, but then you can't have everything. Obviously this is part of the overall setup for the season finale, as that one's called 'The Reality War,' so having the Doctor stumble into an alternate reality is probably going to be relevant. Just a guess.

I'm also guessing that there are some folks out there who feel like this sequence was insulting to the fanbase, but I didn't feel that way. Yes, there's Belinda's comment about them being irritating, but that's followed almost immediately by the observation that the Doctor Who fans were the only ones who had figured out that their reality wasn't real because Doctor Who fans are smarter than everyone else, and it's hard to read that as an insult. Really, the fans are shown to be humble, kind, and sort of sweet. Although it is also true that there's a bit of a swipe at the sort of fan entitlement which demands that if the show doesn't do exactly what they want it to then they're going to throw a tantrum. It's buried fairly low in the mix, but it's undeniably there. That's the whole point of the 'We know it's the show's not about us' comment.

All that said, I love that the Doctor's response to finding himself in an alternate reality where he's a fictional character is to just kick back with a cup of tea and ask what their favorite story is. And I really love that Russell T. Davies sat down and wrote an entire conversation about the Doctor being frustrated that everybody's favorite story is 'Blink.' Not every show can casually pull off meta self-effacement. I bet Steven Moffat laughed his ass off at that.

Bits and Pieces:

-- Apparently the conceit of the season – at least the first portion of it – is that the Doctor and Belinda are attempting to get back to May 24, 2025, by a process of triangulation. So, they'll arrive in whatever location the current story is taking place, take a reading with the Vindicator, and then get on with whatever that week's plot is. I love that setup. The whole 'vindicator reading' can have as much or as little importance to the plot as they want it to on any given week, and it provides a nice reminder of the season long plot without having to dwell on it. That's a great setup.

-- It's a little rich that the Doctor accuses Mr. Ring-A-Ding of poor continuity, considering that he immediately gets something wrong in the very next sentence when he accuses the police officer of being from Miami-Dade County. OK, so we're told when they arrive that they're in Miami, 1952. Miami, at that time, was in Dade County. They changed the name to Miami-Dade in 1997 (although they'd been trying to change it for quite some time. Seriously, they had like four failed votes over the years before they finally got it changed.) Also, earlier in the episode the notice on the theater's chained door cited a 'City Ordinance' from Dade Police. Now, there is actually a city called Dade, but it's not in Dade County, it's in Pasco County, which is to the north. Because for some reason the US is obsessed with having cities that have the same name as counties and yet for some reason aren't in that county. Dade County obviously couldn't issue a City Ordinance, and a law enforcement officer from Dade County – named correctly or not – would be a sheriff or a deputy sheriff, not a policeman. Thank you for coming to my 'Nitpicking About Geography' TED talk.

-- Every single supporting character in this one has exactly the right amount of backstory and depth. Mr. Pye's comment about how he lost his wife is particularly moving. And we're all clear that Logan the diner guy and poor missing Tommy Lee are doing it, right?

-- I also identify as a Velma. Please cite your Scooby-Doo affiliation in the comments.

-- I was just wondering why Logan was letting the Doctor and Belinda sit at the counter and order coffee and had formed the theory that it was probably just because he was open minded and bored out of his mind at 4 AM. Then the episode had him confirm exactly that. Nicely timed.

-- It's interesting to me that Yaz, back in 'Rosa,' was a question mark as to whether she counted for discrimination, but Belinda definitely did here. But then racism was never notable for its consistency, I suppose.

-- It was a little convenient that the Doctor still was holding on to a little regeneration energy after all this time, but it organically led to Mr. Ring-A-Ding discovering that the Doctor could turn light into physical form, which led to the whole third act, so that was a nice bit of plotting.

-- For some reason I really appreciated the detail that the film stock in the projector was upside down, as it gets flipped by the lens. I don't know why, I just really liked that they got that bit right.

-- I understand why, what with the state of current television practice, but looked at practically, it's very odd that the candy girl in the movie theater wasn't selling cigarettes.

-- The plotline about Mr. Ring-A-Ding wanting to harvest the light of nuclear explosions felt a lot like it was a bigger deal in earlier drafts and got dialed back.

-- Lizzie says that they're not the kind of characters that get to have surnames, but in the end credits they do. That made me smile. I'm hoping that the mid-credit scene in which they continue to exist is going to be relevant later.

-- I'm obligated to mention that this is the first time that we've seen Mrs. Flood in a different time and place other than present day London. I'm relatively sure that she's the same Mrs. Flood and we're not going to have another Susan Triad duplicates situation.

Quotes:

Belinda: "Take me back to your planet... Timelordia..."
The Doctor: "Oh, I wish it was called that."

The Doctor: "But I never asked. What about you? Who’ve you got? Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Other friend?"

Belinda: "Oh my God, you actually want to investigate that spooky old cinema. You’re Scooby Doo."
The Doctor: "Honey, I’m Velma."

The Doctor: "There is literally an old caretaker in a haunted cinema."
Belinda: "Come on, Velma."
The Doctor: "Okay, Fred."

Belinda: "I’m Belinda and this is... The Doctor... (to the Doctor) Really? Just the Doctor? Always?"
The Doctor: "Yeah."
Belinda: "Ridiculous."

Mr. Pye: "One spring day she went to cross the road... and I’ve been alone ever since."

Mr. Ring-A-Ding: "Darnit, I was so big when I arrived. I should never have learned perspective."

Mr. Ring-A_Ding: "I’m a two dimensional character. You can’t expect backstory."

Belinda: "Gosh, I’m all flat. And this waistline is impossible."

The Doctor: "Seriously? The continuity is terrible. This is Miami-Dade County (Not for another 45 years it isn’t), and that is the uniform of the NYPD. Try harder."

Robyn: "Well, I knew that this would happen because it was leaked online. Hashtag RIP Doctor Who."

This episode was a lot of fun. The cinematography was particularly lovely, and the atmosphere was fabulous. The only things that I really had an issue with were things that clearly are going to tie in to the finale later, so the harshest criticism I can really level at it is that those elements weren't blended in quite as seamlessly as I'd have liked.

Twelve out of fifteen Doctors. I really did enjoy this one.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, retired firefighter, and roughly 78% water. You can find more of his work at the 42nd Vizsla. If you'd like to see his raw notes for this and other reviews, you can find them at What Was Mikey Thinking.

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