Steven Moffat returns to Doctor Who with his best episode since Blink

Doctor Who
BBC1

Trust Steven Moffat to make things tricky and awkward for himself in his first Doctor Who episode for seven years. The former showrunner has been brought back by his predecessor, Russell T Davies, (yes, things can be complicated in the Tardis) for a one-off episode this Saturday.

It’s called Boom because at the very start the Doctor has stepped on a landmine in the middle of a battlefield in the distant galaxy Kastarion 3. “One wrong move and I go all food mixer,” he says, standing with one foot in the air like a stranded flamingo. And what song would the Scottish Moffat have Ncuti Gatwa, his Scottish Doctor, sing to steady his nerves? Well, no spoilers here, but it couldn’t be more Caledonian. Never misses a trick, our Steven.

Known for his clever, involved, complex storytelling during his time in charge of the show, he also wrote (for Davies) perhaps the best episode in the new era of Doctor Who, the adventure Blink, which introduced the Whoniverse to the terrifying Weeping Angels. Boom could lay claim to being his best episode since that aired in 2007.

It also seems characteristic of Moffat to give himself this tricky narrative challenge, piling on not only the terrors he is so good at but also unbearable tension. He was inspired by a brief moment in Tom Baker-era Who when the Doctor stepped on a landmine (Genesis of the Daleks, 1975, since you ask). Moffat has turned this moment into a whole episode. And the result is, for a good part of it, an involving two-hander with the companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) that delivers a trenchant anti-war message.

When in Rome, do as the Romans, I suppose. Just as Davies has made clear points about the transgender debate, social-care funding, abortion and other issues in his latest scripts, Moffat’s episode would certainly be approved by the Stop the War Coalition or Campaign Against Arms Trade, although perhaps not Lambeth Palace.

The war is being waged by soldiers with dog collars and clerical titles. They seem to be commanded by a bishop and call themselves Anglicans, and at one stage the Doctor admonishes them for their blind faith. Although no doubt Anglicans would approve of the messages about pacifism and the capitalist impulses that drive war.

Into the fray steps a young girl and her father, with the Doctor having to work out from his rather vulnerable position what is going on and whether he can save the inhabitants of the planet, his beloved Ruby and, of course, himself.

It’s a fantastically realised world with clear signs of the bigger budgets from a new deal with Disney: there’s a battlefield with unmistakeable echoes of the horrors of the Western Front — dark, smoky and glowing horribly. It’s a fitting backdrop to a story that is throat-clenchingly unnerving.
★★★★☆
Episode three of the new series of Doctor Who is available on iPlayer from midnight on May 18 and is on BBC1 at 6.50pm that day

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