Doctor Who: The Interstellar Song Contest Review - 5 Ups & 4 Downs

Was the sequence of thousands of bodies being jettisoned into the vaccum of space a genuinely haunting visual? Absolutely. Did most of us think for even a second that the show was going to let those consequences stick? Not on your nelly.

It’s a lesson that this era of the show needs to learn. Sometimes killing one likeable side character has more impact than a thousand redshirts, and, in a time where we seem to be immune to lasting consequences, the more people you kill, the more likely it is there’s a patented RTD reset button hiding under the desk.

This episode is no exception, but the mental gymnastics necessary to excuse the science of the resolution are particularly extreme even by Doctor Who’s standards. From the hologram wizardry, to the reverse cryogenic nonsense, I found this one a little difficult to buy into.

My mind naturally jumped back to the Twelfth Doctor story, Oxygen, and how well it showcased how terrifying and dangerous open space is. In Oxygen, The Doctor spends comparatively little time exposed to space, and he still almost dies, and is left blinded by the experience. We also see the irreversible damage done to the dead bodies that are exposed to the raw vacuum in that episode.

Here, we’re just meant to accept that they’re basically microwaved and feel much better? Not only that, it’s super easy to turn any room into a resurrection chamber, just like that? You can’t just cue up the Bucks Fizz and play this off like it makes sense, even if the musical montage is an undeniably fun moment.