The Ghost Monument, is a thrilling episode with some great character driven plot. Series 11 of Doctor Who is on a role!
Warning,
this review will contain spoilers.
The Ghost Monument is the first adventure for the newly formed TARDIS team,
in much the same way as End of the World
or Beast Below was. Action,
adventure, robots, spaceships, alien planets, scares, and mystery. What more do
you want from an episode of Doctor Who!
Well as with last week, this episode also had very compelling characters too.
The
13th Doctor is awesome! Jodie Whittaker delivered another stellar performance.
She just utterly is the Doctor. There’s just so many traits about her that are
completely who the Doctor is and should be. I also like that the Doctor’s using
Northern colloquialisms like “Let’s get shift on.” After the 12th Doctor it is refreshing
to have an empathic Doctor again, one who cares about people, for me that’s a
core character trait of the Doctor.
It’s
great having a team of companions again. Ryan, Yas and Graham all bring
something new to the show. I think it feels like the right balance has been
struck for having multiple companions, they’re a team and they’re working
together. They feel like different people, but they have each other’s backs,
and they’re bringing their individual mindset and skillset to their adventures.
It’s
always a sign of bad writing when a significant death doesn’t have any lasting
impact, so I like that Grace’s death still has a resonance. Graham is still
going through the grieving process and trying to be there for Ryan which is
really interesting to watch, very human and very emotional. I know there was some doubt when Bradley Walsh was cast as a companion, but I think - as with
the casting of Billie Piper and Catherine Tate – any doubt was unfounded.
Aside
from the main TARDIS team this week’s supporting characters, Angstrom and Epzo,
were also compelling. Angstrom in particular was an interesting character,
resourceful and initially closed off but opening up once she started to trust
the Doctor.
This
episode perfectly got that zone of scary but not too dark that Doctor Who excels at. Those cloth
creatures (whatever they were) were genuinely unnerving. The scares in Doctor Who should be like that,
unnerving but not so terrifying that they’ll traumatise the kids who might be watching.
Who
else was surprised at the mention of the Stenza? The reveal that the Stenza
were responsible for what happened to the planet Desolation, cast a mysterious
and ominous shadow over everything that happened. Even in their absence the
Stenza are a threat. I’m wondering if that’s why there’s no Daleks this year,
because the Stenza are going to be a lurking, and possibly reoccurring big bad.
I hope that might be the case because it’s about time Doctor Who had some new big bad monsters, and the Stenza are
certainly deeply unpleasant.
Speaking
of possible arcs and reoccurring stories, what is the ‘Timeless Child’? I
suspect that’s going to become important later on.
This
week also gave us our first look at the new TARDIS. Personally I really like
this design. We only really got a glimpse of it but I like it. It has elements that
sort of feel like they echo the 9th/10th Doctor TARDIS and the 11th Doctor
TARDIS. This is a TARDIS that feels like the perfect fusion of organic and
mechanical which is what the TARDIS should be. My only complaint is that no one
uttered the words “It’s bigger on the inside.”
So
to sum up, The Ghost Monument was
another entertaining instalment in what promises to be an excellent series of Doctor Who.
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