Doctor Who Series 11: Ranking Every Episode From Worst To Best
9. The Ghost Monument
The best thing about the second episode of the series is its title – a rich metaphor for the TARDIS and one the Doctor rather likes, so much so that in the worst titled episode of the series, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, she has adopted it as her own. The second best thing, the long overdue Doctor Who debut of Art Malik, is far too brief to save this one from falling into obscurity.
If The Woman Who Fell To Earth lived up to the promise of this series being quite different from the Moffat and Davies years, then this episode contrarily screamed more of the same. The Timeless Child felt like a title that was already in use, in the spirit of Davies’ the Nightmare Child and Moffat’s the Impossible Girl. The realisation that this iteration of Doctor Who wouldn’t be all that radical after all may have delighted fans of past eras, but for others it was deflating and depressing.
As Whittaker’s Doctor began to take shape, there was a feeling that the scripts might not be playing to her strengths, and that she was being reduced to phoning in performances in the mould of David Tennant. Cracks were also appearing in what had been a promising start for the larger TARDIS team. Ryan’s Call of Duty comedy moment is anything but, betraying the limitations of Tosin Cole’s acting range. Yaz does very little and the Doctor spends much of her time unnecessarily narrating the very events we are watching.