Doctor Who Series 11: 3 Ups & 4 Downs From 'The Tsuranga Conundrum'

1. Pting's Wasted Antagonist Potential

Not too long after Astos' death, we see the threat, which until then had stayed pretty much hidden. Think back to Series 4: The Doctor and Donna, well, more just the Doctor, taking a trip across a planet called Midnight. A creature, unseen, haunts the passengers and crew. It’s one of the best episodes of NuWho, and The Tsuranga Conundrum could’ve been the new Midnight. Instead, we get this weird-looking thing that looks like one of Stitch's cousins.

Even better, this thing’s called the ‘Pting.’ It feels like Chibnall got a bit stuck here, and threw his pen away from his writing desk and it bounced off something metallic. Lightbulb moment, much? Now what I will say, is that the CGI looked pretty damn good here. At least for Doctor Who. Otherwise, Pting was a bit of an odd one. It was cute, kind of. The idea that it could consume and digest anything non-organic was quite interesting, and when it was screeching at the cast, it was kind of creepy.

However, Pting’s presence in this episode was executed particularly well. This entire episode could’ve been much more frightening if the monster of the week remained completely hidden, much like the antagonist of Midnight. Killing off Astos sucked simply because he was a great character off the bat, but it sucked even more after Pting was revealed because the weight that early death brought upon this, at the time unseen villain, was completely undone as soon as we saw its tiny butt. He may have been cute, but other than that merchandising potential and the ability to get trending on Twitter, Pting didn't really have much going for it.