The Doctor and her companions separate to investigate odd incidents around the globe…

Pete McTighe and Chris Chibnall’s episode picks up from the end of Fugitive of the Judoon when the Doctor believed the TARDIS was deliberately trying to distract her from worrying about the new Doctor she’d met by showing her these anomalies. We pick up with the “fam” split up around the globe – Ryan looking into odd dead birds in Peru, Yaz and Graham in Hong Kong following the trail of alien tech, and the Doctor herself in Madagascar. The episode moves swiftly bringing the various strands together as the Doctor realises that there’s a very common link.

The environmental message that the producers want to hit home gets another airing – with a little bit of lampshading going on regarding the usual suspects when it comes to problems with plastic – and we get another “lair” formed from waste (as we did with Arachnids in the UK last season). There’s some character development for Yaz, who’s probably been the least used member of the TARDIS crew, and while there’s been loads of comments about Adric’s death in relation to the spaceship rescue in this, the 21st century Doctors have been doing this sort of thing since The Doctor Dances!

After the revelations of Fugitive of the Judoon, this does feel rather like a filler episode – it’s got a great global feel (although Hong Kong in Cardiff does feel a little like we’ve stepped back to the ITC shows of the 1960s!), but the supporting characters aren’t as developed as they could be (the backpacker who’s lost her friend who seems to forget all about her; the researcher who’s killed by the birds that no one mentions again; the missing astronaut who’s just going to wander the world with his husband and a third wheel).

Verdict: Looks good, but a little too much style over substance. 7/10

Paul Simpson