2nd Opinion: “Praxeus”
JC and Gustaff give their takes on the sixth episode of Series 12.
JC’s Verdict – Disappointing
How do you follow up an episode that brought back an old foe, saw the return of a fan-favourite companion after a decade, teased the season endgame, and introduced a mysterious new Doctor? If you answered: “Revert to a bog-standard adventure with yet another environmental message.” Then congratulations! Your name must be Chris Chibnall.
You might have (correctly) assumed I was pretty disappointed with “Praxeus”. I don’t take any pleasure in saying that as “Kerblam!” was my favourite episode of Series 11. So naturally seeing that Pete McTighe was behind this episode too did give me hope (Though “Orphan 55” also taught me to lower my expectations from returning writers). Unfortunately, McTighe also seems to have suffered from 2nd Album Syndrome too, albeit not quite as badly.
To be fair, any blame for the episode’s faults can’t be put solely down to McTighe, as Chris Chibnall co-wrote the episode. Initially I thought this was going to mean we’d see some advancement of the story arcs that have been set up so far. Now I’m more inclined to think Chibnall was there just to remove any subtlety and over explain everything.
“Praxeus” does start off fairly promisingly at least. Much like Spyfall there’s a decent sense of scope as we zoom around the beautifully shot locations (the huge overlay titles smacking us in the face, again, to remind us just in case we hadn’t realised). The real “monster” of the week in this case is in fact the titular virus, and the depictions of what it does to its victims are well-realised and gruesome (special credit to the Millennium FX team in, sadly, their final work on the show).
Unfortunately, the longer the episode goes on the more the story dissolves into another eco lesson. As I said in my review a few weeks back, I don’t have a problem with politics in Doctor Who when delivered well, but “Praxeus” is doing virtually the same thing as “Orphan 55” just a few episodes later. It would have stuck out far less if we hadn’t already had this lecture. Pollution is bad, but I’m willing to bet the audience already knows that. So, who exactly are these unsubtle messages aimed at?
Much like in “Kerblam!”, McTighe should be praised for making the companions a little less useless than they have been in the last several episodes. Though credibility is stretched a few times to ensure they all have a part to play (Ryan dissects a bird, everyone can now fly alien ships!). There are also some incredibly silly decisions where the companions needlessly endanger themselves: Ryan enters a quarantined area and touches an infected corpse’s face with no concern for his own safety; Yaz re-enters the Hong Kong building after only just escaping it and the gas mask monsters (and the Doctor allows her!).
Yes, in this week’s confusing case of inconsistent morals: remember when the Doctor used to care about the companions? On top of that Thirteen decides to save Jake at the end. Not so much of a problem when isolated, but it does raise the question of why she didn’t save the mother and daughter at the end of “Orphan 55” only three episodes ago. Also, whilst we’re on the topic of the Doctor, I’m not sure why this, of all stories, required an opening and closing narration. It was very out of place.
The guest cast were patchy this week. Warren Brown and Matthew McNulty were both decent as Jake Willis and Adam Lang, respectively. Even if it felt like a bit of a waste to have McNulty out of action for much of the story. Gabriela Toloi (Jamila) didn’t accurately portray someone going through the death of someone close, nor the dangerous situations she found herself in. Molly Harris was unconvincing and underwritten as the “villain” Suki Cheng.
And so ends this week’s lesson. Now can we please go back to answering some of the more intriguing questions that this series has raised, or if not (looking at the preview) at least have an episode that doesn’t talk down to its audience and just delivers an entertaining watch with maybe a few scares. Is that too much to ask?
Gustaff’s Verdict – The most filler-y story in Doctor Who history?
… I am not stupid Doctor Who, so why do you treat me so?
After the spectacle that was last week with the Judoon and Jack Harkness returning, as well as the jaw dropping reveal that is Ruth’s Doctor, it’s customary to follow an episode like that with a bottle episode like “Praxeus”, but still remind viewers just what was teased the week before and what they should be looking forward to… This episode does no such thing.
In fact, “Praxeus” feels like it can be fit anywhere in the season. The continuity is loose with virtually nothing from last week’s episode referenced even slightly. It’s almost like this episode was scheduled to be aired before “Fugitive of the Judoon” but moved to this spot at the last moment. It also doesn’t help that this episode might just be the most filler-y, pointless story in Doctor Who history.
“Praxeus” however does several things correctly. Right off the bat, it gives all of its characters something to do. Splitting up the team and having each one investigate their own lead allows the story to show off its characters. It also allows the episode to jump around in rapid succession and showcase multiple plot points. This does have the unfortunate side effect of not allowing scenes any breathing room.
The makeup design of the scales on the victims looked very cool. As did the location shooting the production team opted for this week. For the first time this season Yaz is finally given something worthwhile to do, which is a welcomed change from her being a background pot-plant. Unfortunately the episode does not have a lot of time to follow her around because of the sheer amount of plot threads and other characters crammed into this story.
The environmental message this week is not as heavy-handed as in “Orphan 55” and I genuinely learned something new in the form of ‘micro-plastics’. It’s a scary thought knowing I might be slowly killing myself just by breathing. In fact the episode should’ve leaned more heavily on the nightmare fuel of micro-plastics instead of the human-plastic infection angle it went for.
Now let’s move onto problems. We’ll start with the acting. It’s subpar, mainly from the guest cast. Warren Brown puts in a great performance as Jake Willis, but Mathew McNulty, Thapelo Maropefela and Molly Harris do not fare as well. Also fake accents. If your actress cannot do a good accent, cast someone else or change the character’s nationality.
Once more we have an episode with TOO MANY CHARACTERS! For the love of god you only have forty-five minutes to tell your story. Can someone please tell me why we need to tack on another five pseudo-companions to the group? Even if you love this era of Doctor Who, doesn’t it bother you that week-after-week a new group of once-off characters steal the screen time from your favourite characters?
Perhaps the worst part of “Praxeus” is that it suffers from story logic making no sense and a lack of continuity consistency. Take the campers, for example, who declare that they won’t spend the night sleeping amongst trash… only to sleep amongst trash!
In addition:
- The Doctor has just experienced an existential crisis not an hour ago (from her perspective) over the fact that she may have lived a whole other secret life, but there is not a trace of this confusion anywhere on her.
- Why does the Doctor give Ryan the task of dissecting the dead bird when she has an actual scientist standing right next to her when she gives this instruction? Also, why would you give this job to someone you know has dyspraxia?
- The Doctor waits quite some time before asking what kind of science Suki and her team does, which feels like something the Doctor would have asked way before now.
- Graham gets told off for asking Jake a personal question about his relationship with Adam… only for Jake to tell him everything a few seconds later.
- Hundreds of birds break into a small house with the aim of killing a group of people and not one manages to leave even a tiny scratch on anyone?
- I know they’re supposed to stand in for the audience, but does the writer have any idea how dumb they make Ryan and Graham look by having them not know what a ‘pathogen’ is?
Stray observation:
I appreciate Doctor Who practicing what it preaches. It’s doing a remarkable job recycling all those toys and merchandise that isn’t selling in stores, or being sold at a heavy discount for a new year. But I do have to wonder if the BBC wouldn’t have been more environmentally friendly if they hadn’t spent all that potential-clean-up the ocean donation money and jet fuel flying dozens of people halfway across the world to film a television episode.
