{"id":3966,"date":"2025-05-17T00:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T23:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3966"},"modified":"2025-05-17T00:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T23:39:07","slug":"so-what-did-i-think-of-the-story-and-the-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/05\/17\/so-what-did-i-think-of-the-story-and-the-engine\/","title":{"rendered":"So\u2026 what did I think of The Story and the Engine?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is a tough one for me. Lots to enjoy. A fresh location, both macro (Lagos) and micro (barbershop). Some amazing guest actors. The regulars on top form. Unexpected continuity nods. And a very appealing Neil Gaiman-like fantasy atmosphere \u2013 thankfully achieved without actual Neil Gaiman. But counterbalancing this are some odd choices, a lack of coherence and the fact that there probably wasn\u2019t quite enough plot for the running time.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with Lagos. Despite all being summoned up in the Cardiff studios, this looked and sounded amazing and was completely convincing. And the Doctor\u2019s explanation as to why he was drawn back to this place was very sweet and rather heartfelt \u2013 as is his surprise at hearing Belinda empathise completely with his plight. This most human and open of all Doctors needs friends and has learned that these are a little harder come by in some quarters than they were when he looked like a flamboyant cabinet minister.<\/p>\n

Ariyon Bakare is mesmerising as the Barber and Michelle Asante is luminous as his troubled sidekick Abby\/Abena. But not nearly enough was done with the other inhabitants of the barbershop to properly differentiate them. This is a common problem and the gulf between the instantly distinguishable crew of the Sanctuary Base and the impossible-to-keep-straight Flesh Gangers is a wide one \u2013 to pick two examples which stand out to me. Here, writer Inua Ellams only seems interested in the Barber and maybe old Omo, but none of the others.<\/p>\n

Getting Belinda into the story is tough, and when she isn\u2019t available, the Doctor has to play the role of blundering naif, yanking open the door of the shop when surely his Spidey-sense \u2013 or just his common sense \u2013 should have told him to exercise a bit of caution. There follows \u2013 if I\u2019m honest \u2013 quite a lot of that Steven Moffat standby: people standing around urgently. This is livened up briefly by a glimpse of Jo Martin (presumably in Abby\u2019s memory, not the Doctor\u2019s) which is good fun, as is the equally brief appearance of Captain Poppy from Space Babies \u2013 and the requisite Angie Watts cameo.<\/p>\n

Then after all of this narrative vamping, the resolution feels rushed, with the braided-hair-map barely being needed and set up only seconds before being paid off. And the climax didn\u2019t really feel like it meant anything. So, none of this was bad exactly, and all of the good points still stand. And its lyrical style means it can get away with more plot holes than Lucky Day<\/em>, which is fortunate. I just didn\u2019t feel much while watching it, and I really think I was supposed to.<\/p>\n\"3\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a tough one for me. Lots to enjoy. A fresh location, both macro (Lagos) and micro (barbershop). Some amazing guest actors. The regulars on top form. Unexpected continuity nods. And a very appealing Neil Gaiman-like fantasy atmosphere \u2013 thankfully achieved without actual Neil Gaiman. But counterbalancing this are some odd choices, a lack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-11Y","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3968,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966\/revisions\/3968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}