In the fourth episode of the eleventh series of Doctor Who<\/i>, the Doctor finally returns her companions to Sheffield, only for them all to discover something terrible hiding in the city. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Doctor Who<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For arachnophobia and continued discussion of spiders, grief<\/b><\/p>\n
What a fucking EPISODE, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. I love how openly critical this episode is of Americans, our culture, the pervasive love of guns that many of our citizens have, and that it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hand us easy answers. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an uncomfortable critique of capitalism and the rich, too! AND DONALD TRUMP. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still an electrifying, moving story that deals with Graham\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grief, Ryan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s complicated thoughts on his father, and introduces us to Yaz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family.<\/p>\n
HOW IS THIS SO GOOD.<\/p>\n
Return Home<\/b><\/p>\n
You know, it really struck me during this episode that these first four episodes basically form a huge arc; each story is complete, but it blends seamlessly into the others, as if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve watched a four-hour movie. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s incredible writing, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, and the serialization here has done wonders for these characters. Honestly, I feel like this treatment towards Bill would have addressed some of the criticism I had for how she was written. I just needed more time<\/i> with her, more time to understand her motivations, to see her life outside of the Doctor. These four episodes are so rich with emotional beats and intimate storytelling. The return to Sheffield is a HUGE moment for Ryan, Graham, and Yaz, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Arachnids in the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u009d manages to deal with this with empathy and care.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n First, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got the Khan family, and I like that once we meet them, we get<\/i> them. At least from my perspective, this gave me the context that I needed to understand Yaz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desire for more. Her family is wonderful and proud of her and supportive of her, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean she still feels like she needs to be around them all the time. She clearly cares about them, too; I loved that long hug that Yaz gave her mother at the hotel. So, this episode establishes that love and care, and then shows us that Yaz feels smothered. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been stuck in her probationary period at work; she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still living at home with her parents in the same flat they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been in for a long time. (There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no numerical value given, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I felt this episode communicated to me.) In short: Yaz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life is pretty normal and common. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the whole problem: Yaz doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want normal. She wants excitement. She wants drama<\/i>. And look what the Doctor has provided her!!!<\/p>\n And then we can look at Ryan and Graham, both of whom are still dealing with the loss of Grace, and this episode allows us further inside their own emotional struggles. Graham imagines Grace constantly in his home, and each of these sequences is heartbreaking. But they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re oh so real, too. I remember the first time I imagined my father after his death. While it did not manifest as it did for Graham here, I instead \u00e2\u20ac\u0153imagined\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he was still alive in moments where I basically forgot he had passed. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d hear a sound or expect him to be in his recliner or to call me on my birthday. My mind filled in the gap left behind by his loss. Visually, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what this felt like with Graham. His home was full<\/i> of Grace, and even though she was no longer there, he still had not adjusted to that reality. Ryan, on the other hand, dealt with grief much differently. Which is how grief works! Ryan didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t live with her, but she was a huge part of his life. Part of why this was difficult, though, was because Grace\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death unearthed many of Ryan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s feelings for his parents, who are no longer in his life. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why his father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s letter is so painful. His father hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been around, and yet he has the nerve to talk about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153proper\u00e2\u20ac\u009d family?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The Doctor provides something for Graham and Ryan, much as she does for Yaz. Ryan can imagine a life outside of his workplace; Graham can give his grief space to leave his body. All of them find value in the Doctor, what she does, and who she is. And seeing that come to life in these four episodes has been magical.<\/p>\n Arachnids<\/b><\/p>\n AND THEN THERE IS SUCH A GREAT STORY HERE ABOUT HUBRIS AND WASTE AND CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY. I tend to like Doctor Who <\/i>stories with antagonists that are complicated. (Actually, in general, I like those kind of stories.) We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen a number of resolutions that involved figuring out the needs of a living thing; that twisted a villain into something more innocuous; that upending preconceived notions of who was in the wrong. The entirety of the conflict in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Arachnids in the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is human-made, though, and I was fascinated by the choice to confine this whole story to Earth in every respect. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no alien influence; there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no outside force that deposited the spiders or made them grow; in fact, all of it is due to the combined actions of multiple people, but mainly? Robertson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s development company caused this. Human error and human mismanagement combined to create a literally<\/i> toxic environment that gave rise to the bizarre, enormous spiders that began to spread around Sheffield.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This episode was skin-crawling for me; I had really bad arachnophobia as a kid, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s softened over the years. Now, I can observe spiders from a great distance or with glass between us; I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like finding them indoors, but I tolerate them!!! They are not here to hurt me and they eat other bugs!!! Still: holy shit, this whole episode is nightmare fuel for me. IT IS A LOT. But you know what? I think it has to be, because it makes the resolution that much more powerful. I am so enamored with how Whittaker is portraying Thirteen, and one thing she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing differently\u00e2\u20ac\u201dalong with the scripts that write her character this way\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis to make the Doctor immediately<\/i> offer kindness. There is no sense of intimidation or rage in this version of the Doctor. Whereas Twelve was thorny and difficult to strangers at times, Thirteen is ready to meet the entire universe with arms wide open. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s curious, eager, and excited more than anything else. And throughout this episode, she never views the spiders as evil. A threat to human life, yes. But evil? No.<\/p>\n Which is why she is so heavily contrasted with Robertson, played with terrifying zeal by Chris Noth. I love a good villain to hate ruthlessly, but Robertson struck so close to home. He is at times an analogue to Trump, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more representative of the sort of gun-loving, me-first people that make up a portion of American society. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to say there aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t similar capitalists or violence-loving people in the UK, but Chibnall\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s script felt specific enough to ring uncomfortably true in terms of how Robertson was depicted. On an emotional level, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s written as a self-centered asshole who truly refuses to care about another human being aside from himself. Sometimes, that is played for comedy, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mostly just upsetting to watch. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so real<\/i>! And what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scary is that in the end, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not held accountable. He murders the mother spider, makes a terrible comment about mercy, and strolls out of his hotel. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably end up as a tax write-off for him, even if it closes.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a truly upsetting story of greed and a lack of empathy, and I was transfixed by it. Spiders and all! Whew, I love series 11 so much, friends. THIS HAS BEEN SO GOOD.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Arachnids in the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the fourth episode of the eleventh series of Doctor Who, the Doctor finally returns her companions to Sheffield, only for them all to discover something terrible hiding in the city. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Doctor … Continue reading