Holistic Review: Despite being a mild satire of online megastores, Kerblam! largely avoids skewering the expected targets, and instead uses the setting as a backdrop for a less predictable (and impressively fast-paced) story.
At around the halfway point in Kerblam!, I began to marvel that it felt like we'd already used up the entire 50-minute runtime, because the episode was just that jam-packed with incident. A couple of the episodes this season have veered dangerously close to plot-light, but that is definitely not a criticism that could be applied to Kerblam!. I don't think anybody will accuse this story of being slow!
I don't usually start out by talking about the characters, but this time I am, because one of this story's major strengths is that it puts every single one of them, regulars and guest stars alike, to excellent use. That makes Kerblam! only the third story in season 11 to avoid the Curse of Three Companions — demonstrating that, yes, it still can be done just as effortlessly as it was in the 60s — and only the second since the premiere to give each of them some moments to shine. The guest stars are all skilfully well-sketched in just a few moments, and McTighe even gives them all proper last names!
Of the companions, Ryan gets the most attention. We finally learn more details of his daily life pre-Doctor: he used to work in retail (specifically, a store called Sports Stack), and is not keen to return to that life, having apparently found it to be soul-crushing drudgery. His reticent "...yeah.", when Judy beams that he'll feel right at home at Kerb!am, is ever so telling. Fortunately, that job experience comes in useful this week ("I know how these places work!") as Ryan's insights into the workings of a warehouse company help them locate Kira. Better yet, we finally get a glimpse of exactly how Ryan's dyspraxia has affected (and continues to affect) his life. As he tells Charlie, "I should let you know, I have a coordination problem. Not super-serious but, you know, makes life really interesting. And frustrating. And difficult. Especially at moments like this." These two elements dovetail so naturalistically when we learn that Ryan's dyspraxia initially made retail work challenging for him, but thanks to the support of his coworkers, he was eventually able to master the routine, and is now able to outperform even the Doctor. Aside from being a relatable and realistic character facet, it's also a great way to educate the audience that while people living with dyspraxia might need more time to learn something, it doesn't impact their competency. (As he says, it "takes me a while to learn things physically. Get there in the end, but just some stuff takes me a bit longer.") He later explains that it also affects his coordination, and we witness the challenge he faces in jumping down a chute, and leaping off a conveyor belt, though he acquits himself admirably in both tasks. His dyspraxia is utilized so well in the script, and incorporated so naturally, that I feel now I can finally forgive the fact that it hasn't been mentioned for the past four weeks. Happily, Ryan also gets to use his smarts, when he astutely observes that the message must have been added to the Doctor's package before fulfillment, and when he and Yaz cleverly notice the analogue backups in Slade's office. We get another small glimpse of Ryan's inability to resist playing with tempting-looking things; here, it's the Kerb!am bubble wrap that he starts popping. And now I want to know more about Ryan's workplace crush! Cole gives a great delivery of "Ha ha ha ha ha! Funny.", and Ryan's "Oh my days!" catchphrase makes a reappearance when he first catches sight of the conveyor belt drop.
For Yaz, it's her police training that subtly informs many of her actions during the episode. She's immediately keen to follow up on a possible call for help; she uses her interview skills to question both Judy and Dan about worker morale (and, especially in Judy's case, judging by everyone else's reactions, she seems to have immediately pinpointed exactly the right question to ask); and she pins Charlie in a restraining hold. I'm delighted to see that her cop skills are finally contributing to a story. Plus, between restraining Charlie, jumping between conveyor belts, and swiftly evading her robot pursuers, it's rather neat that Yaz has turned out to be the most physical of our three companions. Her caring side is never far from the surface, either. She's becoming a rock of support for Ryan, not to mention one of his strongest motivators, as when she encourages him that he can jump down to the next belt. She gets one of those "proving her companion mettle" moments when she debates whether to let Dan go off to the 999s on his own, or to trust her instincts and try to keep him safe; naturally, she chooses the latter, and bravely goes after him. Likewise, she and Ryan are both adamant that they're not going to back out of finding Kira. And the previous two Yaz-centric episodes are beginning to pay dividends regarding her backstory: thanks to all of our exposure to her relatives, when Yaz says something like "It's tough being away from family.", that line has so much resonance now that we can practically picture it. I'm also really pleased that she finally wears her hair down this week; I love that they've been having fun experimenting with different styles, but most of them have involved her hair being pulled back or partly pinned up. Gill gives a great delivery of "Just trying to get a sense of the place.", "Her dad's all right.", "I bet you were the sort of kid who liked poking a stick in a wasp's nest, just to see what happened.", and her pleased reaction when the Doctor declares them to be "the greatest detectives in the galaxy!"
Graham gets the least to do this week, but he's by no means left out of the action. His dispreferred job in maintenance not only enables him to locate a copy of the warehouse's floor plans and a robot programmed with the original Kerb!am code, it also introduces him to his likeable-when-he-isn't-murdering-people coworker Charlie, with whom Graham makes a genuine effort to bond. I love his cute habit of breaking the ice with people he doesn't know by calling them "cockle", as when he introduces himself to Charlie with "Oh, all right, cockle?" Walsh's delivery of extreme boredom is excellent, as is the scene in which he talks Charlie into helping him; it's a brilliantly subtle performance, because we can tell that Graham is acting. And I love Graham's little smile as he urges the Doctor to check out the mysterious note. He's really getting into the excitement of adventure-by-TARDIS!
Six episodes in, and the thirteenth Doctor is developing recognizable character habits. She demonstrates her Venusian aikido paralysis trick again, and comments (to the character's face, this time!) that "I've never warmed to you." I'm realizing that one of the thirteenth Doctor's strengths is not just her empathy, but her natural instinct to build other people up. And she's not even making a big deal out of it usually; she just has a predilection for offhand unforced compliments. It happens at least a couple of times in this episode alone, like "You're a ninja at this, Ryan.", and "You have a great approach to life, Kira." The only element of Whittaker's performance that I still can't decide if I like, after six weeks of pondering, is her tendency to dramatically flourish the sonic screwdriver every time she uses it. Part of me thinks it's a bit artificially over-the-top, but then it really is kinda fun. But I thoroughly enjoy the Doctor's infectious glee at hearing the delivery bot recite the Kerb!am slogan, and her delivery of "I was being honest with you earlier.", "If I ever find out that you're lying...", "I think you do.", "Use it, Charlie! Learn from it, please!", and "It's the least we can do."
The word that almost immediately occurred to me, watching Julie Hesmondhalgh's performance as Head of People Judy Maddox, was "delightful". Judy is just so warm and relatable, earnest in a slightly awkward but endearing way, and is obviously a woman who takes enormous pride in her work. Plus, something about Hesmondhalgh's mannerisms reminded me of my friend JB's bright chipper mum, so I warmed to her immediately. Judy comes across as an ethical and determined department head, and she's instrumental in saving Charlie's life and getting Twirly to help them. Hesmondhalgh is another of those actors who doesn't seem to be able to deliver a line badly, but my favorites of her performance included "Well, there must be some — Oh no! Here you are! Got you! Private shuttle landing. Sorry, person error. Me, I mean, erm...", "Oh, sorry! Listen to me! You get so used to the jargon! Gone native!", "Proud to be a certified Ten Percent People Powered company!", "Mind you, I would say that, wouldn't I? Head of People! Self-interest.", "As my dad used to say, 'Go organics!' ...he was, er, a bit odd, my dad.", and "I have worked for years to make Kerb!am more of a people-powered company!"
With her sweet and unassuming personality, Kira Arlo (Claudia Jessie) is equally if not more loveable. An adjective immediately popped into my head for Kira too: "sunny". Despite her difficult childhood — and, for that matter, her current life, which is evidently no bed of roses — she hasn't turned out bitter and jaded. Instead, she's so very appreciative of even small kindnesses, and she just can't help but see the positive side of every situation. She even manages to turn a potentially sad question about her lack of childhood presents into a story about how happy and fulfilled she feels imagining the customers' reactions when they open the gift-like boxes that she's hand-packed for them. ("Never knew them, but I can still imagine families opening these packages. We make them happy, by doing what we do here.") That's one selfless, optimistic attitude. In fact, what it reminded me of most was how Alyson Hannigan won the part of Willow in Buffy, by delivering the line "Most of it" in an upbeat way, as if the character were pleased, rather than disappointed, to have gotten part of her Barbie back. That outlook seems to fit Kira to a tee, and I think the fact that I drew an analogy to Willow speaks very highly of Jessie's performance. Loved her delivery of "Work gives us purpose, right?", and "They just arrive here, on little instruction slips." Alas, Kerb!am manages to pinpoint one of Kira's major weaknesses when they offer her "...a gift?" and sweet Kira meekly and trustingly follows them to her death.
Dan Cooper (Lee Mack) is the workplace funny guy, but not in an annoying or cruel way; he's just that outgoing fellow who's always ready with a quip or a witty turn of phrase. Some of his jokes land, some of them don't, but good-natured Dan just keeps on trying! He seems like the kind of guy I'd enjoy working with, because he's not trying too hard, and he doesn't think he's God's gift to humor; he's just a funny guy who likes to make people smile. As if that weren't enough to make me warm to him, he's a kind and loving dad too, and he shows himself to be protective of Yaz, while also acknowledging that she's perfectly capable of managing on her own. Like Kira, Dan is given so much character in a single scene: he's a jokester who made a mess of his first marriage, but has reformed himself into a dedicated father willing to sacrifice his happiness to make a better life for the daughter on which he dotes. Poor Dan, and poor Kira! So dead! I was so hoping Yaz might get to Dan in time, or (given Judy's line "According to the system, they're still alive, and working!") that he was still alive somewhere. His most impressive line, by my reckoning, was "Sent a poster to my little girl, for her bedroom wall." on which you can feel Dan's pride, sadness, and longing all at once. I also really enjoyed his delivery of "Film-star looks!" and "What're you doing? Practicing your lurking?"
Compared to the other three, Graham's maintenance buddy Charlie Duffy (Leo Flanagan) is a bit undercharacterized; for most of the episode, he's just "the sweet shy guy", at least until we learn that he's also an extremist human-rights activist and terrorist with skills in cybernetics, explosives, and teleportation. Honestly, I should've realized that something was off with Charlie the moment we learned that he didn't wash his hands after using the gents. More obvious clues rear their heads when Charlie tries to dissuade them from analyzing Twirly, and later from recharging him, along with his sudden confusion about the robots' latest victim: "What? Kira? But —". (Thank goodness he, unlike nearly all of the villains in The Keys of Marinus, doesn't quite manage to implicate himself.) Still, partly because he's doing very bad things for very good reasons, and largely because of Flanagan's winsome performance and Charlie's adorable (mutual) crush on Kira, it's impossible to completely dislike Charlie. He's a sort of riff on well-meaning, passionate young activists who realize that they have to fight for positive change, and his aims are actually laudable, except that he's going about it like a terrorist would. Nice delivery of "I'm not your mate!" (Speaking of which, I also noticed that, when Charlie gets angry, Leo Flanagan becomes the spitting image of David Tennant.)
Jarva Slade (Callum Dixon) is our red herring, a stereotypical unlikeable jerk of a manager who seems destined to be up to no good. After all, he's obviously hiding his knowledge about the mysterious disappearances, and we see him controlling one of the robots to observe the Doctor and her friends stealing Twirly, so the natural assumption is that he's the one orchestrating the deaths. But then, despite rudely insulting Kira and being a generally threatening presence, he emerges as a very unexpected ally and becomes suddenly pleasant. Fortunately, his emotional about-face and prior hostility are explained away well enough, when we learn that he didn't have enough faith in Judy's innocence to confide in her, and suspected both her and the Doctor of being behind the deaths.
I still hope that season 11 will give us a really memorable original monster, but it's looking less and less likely. This isn't a criticism of season 11 as much as it is of new Who in general, which just doesn't seem to be as interested in scary monsters that are flat-out evil as it is in more nuanced alien threats, in keeping with our more enlightened times. The revival has featured several runs of stories — including practically all of season 11 thus far — in which the monsters were misunderstood, and the villains were all human. They've all been interestingly different and appropriately used, but it must be said that this trend is starting to feel repetitive. (At least for once this season, the villain gets immediate comeuppance.)
Still, the delivery "teammates", voiced by Matthew Gravelle, are certainly unsettling, with their big glowing eyes and permanently fixed smiles. The robots' cheerful-but-slighty-off banter is pretty funny when they're trying to engage in everyday workplace conversations, but just a bit creepy (which I'm sure was intentional) when they're playing the laid-back we're-all-friends-here manager role, as on "Great conversation guys! But unnecessary talking can lead to efficiency reductions. Why not pick up the pace a little?" But then that kind of behaviour is a little creepy in real life too. (Though I admit I much prefer a manager who scolds you with a smile to one who screams or gets passive-aggressive. Ahem. Anyway.)
Assuming he also voices Twirly, this is one of Gravelle's great successes. Twirly's helpful, literal, and easily-overwhelmed nature makes him nearly as vivid and adorable a robot character as K-9. One of his best moments is when the Doctor rephrases her plan as a request for Twirly to deliver something to her — in this case, vital information from the Kerb!am mainframe — so he's quite pleased to help.
So as it turns out, there's not much similarity to Big Finish's The Warehouse after all, but Kerblam! does owe a heavy debt to two other televised McCoy-era stories. There are shades of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy: the TARDIS being infiltrated mid-flight by a robot mail-delivery teleport, and the delivery bots' resemblance to the cheery round-eyed uniformed robot bus conductor. But there are even greater shades of Paradise Towers, which seems to come up an awful lot as an influence on revival-era Who: worker robots run amok, being directed to kidnap people and deliver them to their doom in the basement, which is displayed on the floor plan but off-limits to everyone. There's even a hint of Robots of Death, not only in that this story features a ubiquitous robot workforce homicidally turning against their human colleagues, but especially during the scene in which one robot continues to be functional even though they've ostensibly all been shut down. And just a dash of Terror of the Vervoids, which involves the TARDIS crew responding to a mysterious call for help and getting embroiled in a murder mystery.
Given such excellent references, it's probably no surprise that I found the plot highly entertaining. One of the great joys of Doctor Who is how frequently the main characters are dropped into a completely foreign culture, and forced to fit into it as best they can, without drawing attention or suspicion. This sort of setup adds tension, humor, and loads of background color. That's all present in Kerblam!, even though the setting in question is, at its heart, a familiar, and relatable, corporate nine-to-five. Better yet, the plot itself is structured as a murder-mystery, which imposes a much-loved structure onto this already-enjoyable template. And because the plot therefore provides several avenues for investigation, and the setting enables the characters to be split up usefully, the storyline is divvied up well among the regulars. Pete McTighe has done an excellent job scripting a story that follows reassuringly familiar beats but with a great deal of inventive tweaks and twists. For example, riffing off Amazon's workplace practices makes the story feel relevant, as does Charlie's extremist-activist background. And the dialogue is entertaining throughout. It's far from an out-and-out comedy, but there are some definite laugh-out-loud lines.
One of the more humorous elements of the story is the way it pokes fun at corporate culture. Like clueless, manipulative managers, the robot staff are programmed to be artificially chummy in a way that obviously isn't genuine, yet sort of feels nice anyway? ("Ryan Sinclair and the Doctor — great name! — with my colleague to the left.") We also hear a lot of jargony buzzwords, like GroupLoops, and the euphemistic "organics" instead of "people" and "teammates" instead of "robots". What's great is that the Doctor and Ryan, as outsiders with nothing really to lose, don't feel bound by the rules of the local work culture. If they think that an authority figure is wrong, or incompetent, or rude, they'll stand up to them, and talk back, and forthrightly vent their opinion in a way that a regular employee, fearing for their job, wouldn't feel able to do. It's kind of cathartic to watch, honestly. For example, this scene, in which — along with me LOLing at the 'clipboard' and 'collection' lines, then nearly sobbing as the Dcctor fought back against poor management skills (apparently I have issues) — the Doctor simultaneously upbraids Slade, challenges him to be a better person, and flummoxes him with a subtle interrogation:
But the script hints at a creepy undertone to the jovial collegiality and corporate-speak desire for improved efficiency, though Kerblam! doesn't explore that aspect as deeply as it might have. For example, the GroupLoops — reminiscent of ankle bracelets used for house arrest, though Ryan claims to have actually been fitted with a comparable device at his last job?! on Earth?!? — are sort of analogous to micromanagers who want to account for every moment of your time, invasively monitoring not just your productivity but also your conversations, so that you have no privacy at all. (I'm reminded of the new trend toward open-plan workplaces, the very idea of which fills me with dread.) So many of these devices and procedures that curtail freedom are eventually normalized among the populace, and indeed, Judy seems to find the GroupLoops completely innocuous. The script could have gone in a variety of directions with the GroupLoops, but as it turns out, Judy is basically right. Aside from the moment when they reveal to Judy that the Doctor and her friends have snuck into Slade's office, the GroupLoops are generally put to helpful rather than menacing purposes in the storyline.
Likewise, given the obvious analogy between Kerb!am and Amazon, I was a little bit surprised that Kerblam! doesn't target Amazon more squarely in its sights for hotly-debated issues like invasive data mining, quietly selling products that range from controversial to borderline illegal, overworking its employees, undercompensating its employees, subjecting its employees to brutal working conditions, and putting smaller local stores out of business. I mean, there are so many controversies to pick from, many of them flagged in the news within the past year alone, so it's certainly timely. And the setup is right there, especially when we watch Team TARDIS being forced to keep up the pace in the fulfillment and packing departments. But Kerblam! just lets its potential for hard-hitting satire pass right by. Nobody even gets a Lucy-wrapping-chocolates moment on the conveyor belt. So while it's definitely satire, it's not full-throated.
But, you know, that's kind of interesting. Just because a story uses an Amazon-like company as a backdrop doesn't mean that the plotline therefore has to skewer Amazon. In fact, you could argue that would be the expected path, given that science-fiction so often serves as allegory. Now, don't get me wrong; especially in this socially-conscious era of Doctor Who, I would absolutely welcome an episode that addressed any of these problems head-on, but there's nothing wrong with the story using that setup to extrapolate an alien culture around it, explore what other problematic issues might arise in that culture, and deliver a completely different moral message.
The most prominent theme is clearly fear of automation, which these days doesn't even require a science-fiction lens to address, given that jobs are already being lost to talented and efficient robots. The media often comments that anger toward job loss caused by immigration is not only misplaced but misdirected, because the true culprit is automation; in fact, long-standing management consulting firm McKinsey & Company even hypothesizes that "half of today's work activities could be automated by 2055". It's certainly true that automation ushers in other related jobs and inspires entirely new lines of work, but it also tends to take over jobs that are menial and low-skilled, and those displaced workers may have a difficult time finding substitute employment. Fears of mass layoffs due to automation find their way into this episode, in which we hear that only half the humans in the entire galaxy are employed, and are deeply grateful for whatever jobs they can get. (How this society manages to function, we aren't told, but it sounds like a grim existence.) As a result, new Kandokan labor laws require that companies hire a minimum of 10% people at all levels of the workforce, and the poverty levels are no doubt what motivate terrorists like Charlie to take drastic action in order to spur dramatic change.
Related to that theme is the moral that machines are inherently neither good nor bad. With Amazon's online services, and automation of manual jobs like automotive factories, people often talk about how "the machines" are taking people's jobs and putting local stores out of business. While that's true to an extent, it demonizes the technology. Kerblam!'s point is that the technology itself isn't bad, but it can be misused. As the Doctor says, "The systems aren't the problem! How people use and exploit the system, that's the problem. People like you." The Kerb!am systems and their robot workforce aren't inherently responsible for the galaxy's low employment rate or the deaths in the warehouse; they're certainly a factor, but the responsibility ultimately lies with the people who chose to use them to either replace or kill human beings rather than improve their lives.
The other, late-blooming, message is a denouncement of well-meant but misguided activism that crosses the line into terrorism. The Western world isn't currently struggling with this problem as prominently as when the IRA and Basque separationists were actively violent, so it's not exactly topical, but at the very least it gives Charlie a more fleshed-out background and more complicated motivation as a villain.
The storyline really keeps the audience guessing as to what exactly is wrong at Kerb!am. The initial mystery of who's asking the Doctor for help develops into the deeper problem of why and how employees are disappearing unaccountably, and the plot does a nice job of laying out subtle clues and plenty of red herrings, though I don't know whether there were enough clues for even an astute viewer to have worked it out. I thought I'd figured it out when the Doctor and her friends walked into the warehouse as, behind her, a grinning robot intoned the company jingle: "Kerb!am! Fully automated, people powered." Naturally, with a slogan like that, how could they not be somehow literally using people to power the company? (You know, like Chaco Chicken: "Good People, Good Food!") And while we're not wrong to assume that the creepy robots are behind the disappearances, I was certainly way off about their rationale. Later, we're led to believe on a couple of occasions that the robot workforce are picking off low-achieving employees, sort of like The Robots of Death crossed with an inverse version of The Krotons. But that's evidently not the case. (Therefore, I wonder how Charlie targeted his test subjects, why he picks Yaz, and why the delivery bots take Dan, who as far as they're concerned just happened to show up in the wrong place at the wrong time?)
Ultimately, the basics of Charlie's plan make sense: in order to erode trust in Kerb!am's automated systems, Charlie has developed a process to convert bubble wrap into bombs, and after putting a hold on the company's outgoing orders, he's replaced the ordinary bubble wrap in all of the boxes with his own weaponized version. Once he's triggered enough orders to explode, he'll release the robots to deliver their explosive packages simultaneously to unsuspecting households across the galaxy. That way, when thousands of innocent people are killed, Kerb!am will take the blame and go bankrupt, leaving an employment void which presumably Charlie has plans to fill with an entirely human workforce.
Sadly, though, the plot starts to fall apart toward the end, and as usual in these cases, repeat viewings reveal that the cracks are deeper than they first appear.
The seriously problematic plot issues that I noticed were these:
There are others for which I can infer a rational explanation:
I also feel duty-bound to criticize the point that the Doctor condemns Charlie for killing eight people and planning to kill more, yet she defends the computer system ("It took her, knowing how you felt about her, to show you how it would feel, because how you feel right now about Kira is how all those families and friends will feel if your plan goes off.") even though it first tried to dissuade Charlie by killing him, then by kidnapping his innocent love interest and killing her with one of his bombs. So the computer system is not exactly a paragon of virtue here. Not only has it sunk to Charlie's level, there's also the tiny detail that it's also, you know, committed cold-blooded murder. Plus it's apparently vengeful and sadistic, given that it appears to wait until Charlie has finally found Kira before it teleports the bubble-wrap bomb into her room, to ensure that he watches her die. I mean, sure, it's great to encourage him to have empathy for his former and future victims, but couldn't we find a way to do that without taking yet another life?
Likewise, it's a bit disturbing that the Doctor doesn't warn Charlie of her plans, and give him a chance to turn himself in to them, before she primes all the bombs to explode around him. I know she's in a hurry, but once she's gained control of the delivery bots and overwritten their previous delivery instructions, there's surely no rush to detonate the bubble wrap. It's not until Graham offers Charlie an opportunity for redemption that she remembers to give him one too, while the robots are in the process of preparing to blow up their packages. It's weird because this Doctor, in particular, has been especially good about that sort of thing up until now.
In all other respects, though, it's a very well-plotted script. In fact, on several occasions, the script answered my objections just after they occurred to me, or even before I had a chance to realize them: the Doctor abandons subterfuge and reveals herself as an interloper only because she's learned that people are disappearing, Kira's disappearance doesn't fit the pattern because it's the only one that was orchestrated by the system, and Graham heads off my inevitable protest about Kerb!am blowing up their customer base by observing that "Kerb!am's trying to kill their own customers? That's the worst business plan I've ever heard." Among the story's most satisfying moments: I thought it was clever and unexpected that the plea for help came from the Kerb!am computer system instead of an employee. (Why it thought to target the Doctor is anyone's guess, but maybe its data-mining algorithms suggested her as a talented rescuer of the innocent!) I also appreciate when a scriptwriter takes time to lay the subtle groundwork that makes a plot twist logical; in this case, that Kerb!am (and Charlie) reached the sealed-off Dispatch level by exploiting the delivery bots' teleportation abilities. This allows for a lovely character moment when, before it occurs to anyone that they could simply teleport there, Ryan independently comes up with a successful (if highly risky) alternative workaround for reaching the foundation level.
The sets are minimal but appealing, and certainly fitting for a dull job that doesn't engage the brain, particularly the fulfillment warehouse sets. In contrast, the walls in Slade's office, and the hallway outside, are laid out in lovely glowing geometric patterns, and the scanning machine which processes new employees has a particularly interesting and appealing design. I also really like that the departments are color-coded, though I wonder why maintenance doesn't get a color?
The incidental music by Segun Akinola didn't make a big impression on me this week, but I liked the recurring motif when the Kerb!am man teleports into the TARDIS, the TARDIS materializes outside the warehouse, and the delivery-bot army is revealed.
Kerblam! features some gorgeous effects, like the bot in the TARDIS teleporting away and leaving the Kerb!am logo in its wake, the large planet of Kandoka looming over the ginormous Kerb!am warehouse in a pink-swathed dawn sky, and several great effects shots of the huge warehouse (and the dispatch department) filled with hundreds of conveyor belts.
I adore that, after years of being an integral-if-obvious part of Doctor Who set design and effects, bubble wrap finally gets a star turn as the villain! (The Wirrn, I think, would approve.) Though I'm slightly annoyed at the official Doctor Who Facebook feed for posting, a mere 18 minutes after the episode's end in the UK, a heavy implication that the bubble wrap was dangerous: "Kerblam bubble wrap... 'Are you sure you wanna pop that?' 💥"
The Kerb!am robots, while well designed, suffer from one rather major problem: it's not immediately obvious which are "good" and which are "bad". On my fourth viewing, it finally dawned on me that the delivery bots (like the one that infiltrates the TARDIS), which are supposedly restricted to Dispatch, wear a spiffy uniform with red piping accents, whereas the Teammates wear black caps, blue shirts, and quilted black vests. But we also see robots in the red-piping uniform on guard in the lobby (because the Doctor later needs to use one of them to teleport to the foundaton level) and guarding the chutes to Dispatch (for no evident reason). Aside from those few counterexamples, their costumes are consistent, so I think maybe the issue is that the two costumes aren't distinctive enough to make it immediately obvious which kind of bot we're looking at.
Now, it's pretty rare that I complain about a sound effect, but we have to talk about why every single thing in this episode that's filled with liquid — notably Graham's mop bucket and bottle of cleaning fluid — sloshes disgustingly. I don't even know why the sound rubs me the wrong way, except that maybe the sloshing sound is more vigorous than onscreen evidence would justify, and that the liquid somehow sounds a little thick, like maybe there are solids mixed in too. Eeurgh. Could we pick a less-gross sloshing sound effect next time please?
Jennifer Perrott's direction is really nice. My favorite shots included the intercuts of Yaz searching for Dan among the 999s, Ryan and Yaz standing to back the Doctor up, the characters talking to Twirly from the bot's POV, and especially the brilliant shot of the foregrounded out-of-focus purple GroupLoop on Graham's ankle, which discreetly makes it obvious that he's been assigned the Doctor's desired classification. That's a great example of telling the story through direction alone.
And then there's one scene where the direction and the effects join forces for stunning impact: the shot of the camera leading the way as Ryan and Yaz approach the nearly-sheer drop, then plummet over it. It looks so realistic that it makes me want to claw my way back away from the screen, and it makes my stomach lurch every time. Very very well done! It's one of the most pulse-pounding sequences in Doctor Who ever, and just FYI I don't think I ever want to see it in HD.
I do love a good title with multiple meanings, and I'm now realizing how appropriate this title was to the episode's resolution. Though it does rather make me wonder why a warehouse company would name themselves after a comic-book explosion noise. It's as if they were planning for their packages to explode someday!
Rumors have begun to swirl this week that both Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall may be leaving the series after next year, so I would just like to go on record that I feel the quality of this season has been unusually high, and I'm not eager to see either of them leave anytime soon. In Chibnall's case, I can't believe I'm saying that, but he has definitely impressed me so far this year. I really like what you're doing with the series and please don't stop just yet? And I'm most definitely not ready to say goodbye to Whittaker, who has been a breath of delightfully fresh air this year. They've both invigorated the franchise and I love them for it.
Minor points:
Doctor: "Ahhh! It's the Kerb!am man!"
Yaz: "It's the what?"
Doctor: "The Kerb!am man."
Graham: "You're just making sounds now."
Ryan: "Halfway across the universe, and I feel like I'm back at work."
Doctor: "Ryan, brilliant!"
Judy: "Oh! You're relatives of the First Lady!"
Doctor: "Oh! Did she put that? We asked her not to."
Dan: "Hello Les! How are the family?"
Bot: "Good morning, Daniel. My name is not Les, but I acknowledge your amusing coworker banter."
Judy: "Two hearts?"
Doctor: "Courtesy of the First Lady. Very good healthcare policy, I don't like to talk about it."
Kira: "Do you want a tip? If I ever get bored, I imagine customers opening their parcels, back on Kandoka... their big smiles. I only ever got a present the once, but, oh, I can never forget how it felt. Like, like a little box of happiness."
Yaz: "Where is she?"
Dan: "She's upstairs. Just had her finals."
Dan: "He was a pole dancer till his hips gave out." (Yaz laughs) "I like you, Yaz, you laugh at me jokes!"
Kira: "I'm just such a butterfingers."
Charlie: "I love butter!"
Judy: "What do you think it means?"
Yaz: "Not exactly cryptic."
Doctor: "Something is very wrong here at Kerb!am. And if you two don't do something about it, I might start to suspect that you're responsible."
Judy: "We'll look into it. You have my word."
Slade: "Mine too."
Doctor: "Those words better be worth something."
Graham: "I can detect even the most subtle of social cues."
Charlie: "Really?"
Graham: "No! It's obvious!"
Charlie: "I mean, have you smelt her?!"
Graham: "Strange enough, I haven't."
Charlie: "She smells... perfect."
Doctor: "What if I said we'd got lost, ended up in here by accident, just as the filing cabinet weirdly fell open? How would that play?"
Doctor: "Can you pause all sales protocols for a bit?"
Twirly: "Even the upselling?"
Twirly: "Without upselling, my only purpose is delivery."
Graham: "We don't need you to do that either, mate."
Twirly: "The future is very confusing for my protocols!"
Judy: "We need you to carry out a task which may fundamentally save Kerb!am!"
Twirly: (spinning frantically) "I am only a delivery bot!"
Graham: "See? Now you've made it nervous!"
Doctor: "Don't panic, Twirly. You can do this."
Doctor: "Can you believe how stupid I am?"
Graham: "Is that a rhetorical question?"
Twirly: (to the Doctor) "Hello again! Customers with your current medical symptoms browse blood pressure medication."
It's stuffed to the brim with fast-paced incident, and every character plays an important role, so even the slightly underexplained villainous plot doesn't significantly impact its success. Not an all-time favorite, but a solid and fun story.