Doctor Who: Once, Upon Time Review - 5 Ups & 6 Downs

Swarm, mate, what happened to you?

The most compelling villain of the Chibnall era had an off-week this time around, both in the past and present day. In The Doctor’s story, Swarm’s appearance resembles the state we found him in at the start of the series. This design is far less striking than his newer look, at the prosthetics seem to limit his expression and speech considerably - taking all the oomph out of his performance to the point where he almost feels like a different character. He goes off on a crazy tangent about time and space and how time is at war with space and time is totally better than space, in what can only be described as some sort of intergalactic ‘my dad could totally beat up your dad’ argument with himself. Script-wise, it’s meaningless drivel, frankly.

Back in the modern day, Swarm reveals that he always intended for the Doctor to throw herself into the Time Storm and save her friends, which seems like a super weird plan. Maybe he just wanted the audience to get some much needed exposition and really fancied an anthology episode. With his work done, he just taunts the Doctor and leaves, instead of, you know, killing everyone like he absolutely can.

Big, big down.