Doctor Who: The Vanquishers Review - 4 Ups & 9 Downs
10. UP - The Interrogation
Okay. Let’s all take a breather and look at something this episode did right. The first real highlight of the episode comes when The Grand Serpent takes The Doctor in for interrogation. Fun as Craig Parkinson is, it isn’t him that makes this scene great, it’s Jodie.
The Doctor immediately takes control of the situation and becomes the interrogator, belittling The Grand Serpent and getting under his skin, all whilst cracking a few jokes - this may just be the most Doctor-like scene of the series. Watching The Grand Serpent get torn down like this is incredibly satisfying, and is exactly the way you’d expect the Doctor to deal with an arrogant, pretentious character. We also get a fairly flimsy explanation of The Grand Serpent’s motives, but it’s better than nothing.
The Doctor is then saved by herself, and whilst we complained about this earlier, this is the one scene where this really works. The Doctor’s flirty interactions with herself are pretty funny, and the scene isn’t shot in a completely confusing way, unlike the rest. We will, however, knock off a few points for Thirteen subjecting her interrogator to his own torture device - this seems just a tad against her moral code. More on that later…