My Review of Doctor Who: "The Story And The Engine"

 

Written by Inua Ellams 

Directed by Makalla McPherson 

The Barber: "Tell a story. It's the only way."

The Doctor: "I change my mind."

If you wanted something a tad different for your weekly adventure of Doctor Who, then this very story dependant episode should be right up your alley.

After failing to get Belinda home for the fifth week in a row, the Doctor thought a trip to Nigeria would be a nice way to see home from home. A barbershop owned by Omo Esoso (Sule Rimi), who the Doctor formed a close offscreen friendship with. 

Of course things have changed since the last time the Doctor and Omo talked to each other. In the barbershop were Omo's three best clients, Rashid Abubakar (Stefan Adegbola), Tunde Adebayo (Jordan Adene) and Obioma Okoli (Michael Balogun). There was also a mysterious Barber (Ariyon Bakare) and he had a lot going on with him.

For starters, there was the fact that he controlled the barbershop that was on a giant spider. In order for the spider to move, each person had to tell a compelling story while getting a haircut. The Doctor lamenting about Belinda being good at her job managed to be a hell of a story.

At first, I thought this episode was going to have Belinda relegated to the TARDIS while the Doctor was trapped in the barbershop but halfway through the episode, Belinda ended up in the middle of things too. Now, what of this mysterious Barber? His story took a turn.

He bragged about being various gods like Anansi, Bastet, Loki, Dionysus etc but in reality he was a storytelling angered by their rejection of him and working with Anansi's daughter, Abena (Michelle Asante) in order to get back at them. However his choice of revenge turned out to be a bit too extreme even for Abena and ended up siding with the Doctor and Belinda.

I'll admit this episode certainly went places I didn't expect. While there was a certain pompousness to the Barber that veered into cruelty, the Doctor was able to save him at the last minute. As for Abena, her history with the Doctor saw a very brief appearance of the Fugitive Doctor (Jo Martin). I already knew about that return but I was still happy to see her back, despite the very brief appearance.

- Poppy from Space Babies was seen by Belinda in this episode. Belinda told the Doctor about her. We saw archive clips of previous Doctors in the third act.

- Mrs Flood interacted with Belinda again at the hospital when the Doctor was telling Belinda's story.

- A prequel story was released yesterday on the BBC site for this episode. 

- Omo's clients stories ranged from a father getting a cut for their child's name day, a runner and a man with a sick mother.

- Belinda talked about her nan taking her to India when she was younger. Belinda was also going to her birthday party before she saved another woman's life in the Doctor's story.

- Chronology: 2019 Lagos in Nigeria.

I liked The Story And The Engine. It felt like a personal story from the writer with a little plot development. I thought the guest characters were engaging, Ncuti Gatwa had some very emotive scenes and Jo Martin can definitely come back again.

Rating: 8 out of 10