10 Doctor Who Episodes That Took Risks And Failed

This episode from the Thirteenth Doctor’s first season was a mix between a horror story and a message about environmentalism, with a healthy dose of Anti-Trump propaganda thrown in for good measure. While it was a valiant effort at using a commonly feared creature to unify the team, the idea of giant spiders simply wasn’t enough. This episode was supposed to be focused on the decision for Ryan, Yaz and Graham to join the TARDIS full-time, before getting bogged down in a very muddled script.

Chris Noth is highly stereotypical as Jack Robertson, the American businessman who hasn’t a care about the damage he is visiting on the world. There was simply no way for his character not to be compared to Donald Trump, which made this attempt at a pro-environment, anti-capitalist episode a bit too on the nose at the time.

While the character’s return in Resolution of the Daleks was slightly better received, everything about this first episode was too heavy handed, too obvious and too much of a deviation from the entertainment that the show was famous for. While Jodie Whittaker has been excellent as the latest incarnation of the Time Lord, episodes like this did her no favours in her first few stories.