Doctor Who: Boom Review - 9 Ups & 3 Downs

Right off the bat, we're introduced to the enemy that the Anglican Marines are supposedly at war with (The Kastarions), as John and Carson attempt to make their way back to base camp.

We aren't given much information on these creatures, only that they can't be seen. Carson muses that they might be made of fog, and later, it's suggested they might also be in the mud. Both of these seem like fairly standard set-ups for a monster of the week.

As the episode goes on however, mentions of the Kastarions become scarcer. All the while, it's the munitions manufacturer, Villengard, that seems to be the focus of the worldbuilding, with a particular focus on their war profiteering and numerous references to their algorithm, which is designed to benefit suppliers above all else.

Around halfway through, it becomes abundantly clear that the Kastarions won't be showing up at any point, and from there, given the repeated focus on the algorithm, it doesn't take a genius to connect the dots: there is no war. Aside from this being taken straight from the big book of obvious twists, it's also a little too over-telegraphed, and the script leaves it far too late to drop this bombshell, meaning that, rather awkwardly, a lot of viewers likely came to the correct conclusion before the Doctor did.

That said, we're not standing on a landmine, so we'll give him a little bit of leeway.