Lux
review

Holistic Review: An audacious and imaginatively creative episode, Lux (mostly) nails its atmosphere and concept, but its questionable internal consistency puts the whole story, despite its successes, on a shaky footing.

When it comes to science-fiction in general, and Doctor Who in particular, I've always known that when it comes to plot concepts, I have two soft spots: time loops (à la Groundhog Day, "Monday" from The X-Files, the entirety of the series Seven Days, and Eve of the Daleks, to name a few) and quest plotlines (The Keys of Marinus, Death to the Daleks, the Key to Time, etc). Now, I'm learning, I also have a third: the fusion of live-action and animation, which made "Scoobynatural" such a delightful Supernatural episode which I might now need to rewatch. But I'd never even imagined Doctor Who doing such a thing, until the first trailer for the 2025 season blew my mind with its shot of Mr Ring-a-Ding climbing out of the movie theater screen.

Combine a plot involving animation with a setting in 1950s America? The setup is almost too good to be true, and nearly impossible to screw up.

So, it comes as no surprise — though I'm still breathing a sign of relief — that RTD lands another strong story, perhaps not quite as strong as Dot and Bubble, but definitely an improvement on The Devil's Chord, a story of his which I really liked but found deeply flawed. Don't get me wrong, Lux has its deep flaws too, but I think the confident flair with which the script is realized onscreen papers over some of the cracks. Anyway, I want to celebrate this story, so let's start with what it does really, really well.

First, the 1950s setting, which as we know from last week is a great way to get on my good side. In terms of historical eras — bearing in mind the obvious downsides, which Lux gently illustrates — the '50s are one of my favorites, thanks largely to my mother's nostalgia for her own childhood. Even though Lux is set in the middle of the night, RTD cleverly finds ways to integrate the feel of the era, setting the story in a movie theater and a 1950s diner, with establishing shots of a neon-lit Miami street, and fun costuming that extends to the regulars. We'll come back to all of these points!

Setting a Gatwa episode in the southern USA of the 1950s also allows the Disney series, finally, to follow in the footsteps of Rosa and The Witchfinders and properly explore the logical ramifications of a minority-presenting Doctor travelling to places and times where people in those minority groups were treated as subhuman. The tenth Doctor (in)famously told Martha to "Just walk about like you own the place. Works for me." but in this body, he finally realizes that he can't do that, which feels so much more respectful to any audience members who even now are living in places where they can't "just walk about like they own the place" without risking their health or their lives.

With an awareness of segregation and its impacts baked into how the Doctor and Belinda approach their interactions throughout the episode, this is a vast improvement over how last week's moral message was handled.

Second, the atmosphere. Admittedly it swings quite dramatically between spooky mystery and cartoon comedy, but both are successful in their own way... though, for me, it's the "spooky mystery" part of Lux that really sparkles. I absolutely love that Belinda's comparison to Scooby-Doo resonates throughout the episode, as the mystery of an evidently-haunted movie theater — where 15 patrons vanished one night, and at four o'clock in the morning you can hear the sound of movies playing to an empty theater — proves irresistible to the Doctor.

Third, the riveting concept of a 2-D cartoon character come to life in our 3-D world, complete with accompanying music and sound effects. Naturally, the Doctor and Belinda's first reaction to Mr Ring-a-Ding is (wary) curiosity:

There are times when this plot element echoes Flatline, as Mr Ring-a-Ding transforms people from 3-D to 2-D or vice-versa, which is very much to the story's advantage.

And, my goodness, the effect used to realize Mr Ring-a-Ding is just flat-out faultless. How very much I appreciate that Mr Ring-a-Ding was created using classic hand-drawn animation rather than CGI, and boy howdy, does that nuance come across onscreen. (The excellent effects sequence of Mr Ring-a-Ding rendering into 3-D animation provides a really interesting comparison; he emerges resembling a creepy fuzzy toy with aged yellowing teeth, as if he'd just leapt out of Five Nights at Freddy's, but I far prefer the original.) I loved the expression on his face on the line "What'd you say?", and the way he tips his hat back onto his head as the Doctor and Belinda gawk at him. Among the particularly stunning animation effects are his shadow, which seamlessly matches the shadows that the Doctor and Belinda are casting to either side of him; the shot, as Mr Ring-a-Ding absorbs the energy from the Doctor's body, of a cartoon heart starting to beat in his chest; and the shot of a growing Mr Ring-a-Ding stretching out toward the sky, while sighing with euphoric pleasure. The moment that captured all of our attention from the trailer — of Mr Ring-a-Ding crawling out of the cinema screen — is truly breathtaking, and may very well make for the most arresting visual of the entire Gatwa era. So, so brilliantly achieved.

Likewise, for the all-too-brief sequence of the Doctor and Belinda being animated — I'd assumed the majority of the story might be animated, like Scoobynatural — I absolutely adore that the style they decided to mimic was that of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, ie the embodiment of my childhood (second only to Doctor Who). It's a super effect, flickering between live-action and animation as the Doctor and Belinda are converted, and the two actors give a hilariously heightened cartoony performance. The following sequence, of the Doctor and Belinda trying to escape the cartoon, feels similarly imaginative, unpredictable, and exciting.

However, it's Mr Ring-a-Ding as the central villain where I fear the episode starts to lose its footing, for a couple of reasons.

My one concern about Mr Ring-a-Ding, as I mentioned last week, is that it was always going to be a challenge to make a comedic cartoon character scary; indeed, I'm not sure they quite managed it. Mr Ring-a-Ding is, by far, more cute and amusing than he is frightening. At the end of the teaser, the mood of the cliffhanger is 'a cartoon character is impossibly emerging from the screen', not (despite the screams) 'something bad is about to happen'. Perhaps if we'd seen him immediately cause the audience members to vanish (and understood the reason why), it would've boosted his menace right from the start. Without that key detail, he comes across as fairly innocent for a significant portion of the story's runtime. Even by the point when the Doctor and Belinda turn and flee from him, it's not quite clear what Mr Ring-a-Ding can even do to harm them.

Eventually we learn (as I'll discuss below) that he's trapped the missing audience members on film cells, and he can zap the Doctor and Belinda into cartoon-land. But these still feel more like cool tricks, or maybe an accidentally bad fate, rather than outright menace. Sure, he delivers some of his lines in a menacing growl, but without understanding what he wants or how he can harm innocent people, it's difficult to grasp what makes him scary, and I think that's very much to the story's detriment.

Don't get me wrong, Alan Cumming — who delightfully, as I alluded to above, was also in the last story to really explore the ramifications of a minority(-gender) Doctor trying to assert authority and save lives in a prejudiced society — is a genius who can do no wrong in this episode. As the voice of Mr Ring-a-Ding, he's absolutely brilliant. If I didn't know better, I could've genuinely believed that Mr Ring-a-Ding was voiced by an actor plucked right out of the Warner Brothers animation studios. Cumming's voice for the character fully embodies that stereotypical brash Brooklyn-tinged 1940s cartoon voice that distinguished characters like Bugs Bunny, and his inflections are absolutely masterful. He imbues Mr Ring-a-Ding with so much personality and humor, and an insouciant flippancy that disguises the menace beneath. Every line is great, but I especially loved his delivery of "If you won't tell me, then I'll have to find out for myself.", "If you solve that mystery, those poor lost souls might come back.", "I can do the same for you!", and "Oh, the detail!" Cumming also has a splendid singing voice, to the point that I find myself hoping Mr Ring-a-Ding's catchy song gets released on an official soundtrack at some point. Fortunately, there are a few moments where Cumming really gets to milk Mr Ring-a-Ding's dark side: his voice turns menacing (and his eyes turn into crescents!) when he talks about moonlight, and the reveal of his true identity leads into a sequence where the tension finally begins to mount.

Promisingly, Mr Ring-a-Ding comes with a ready-made villainous catchphrase: "Don't make me laugh!", usually said in a sarcastic tone. (Alas, the official Doctor Who Facebook page spoiled this catchphrase about an hour before the episode aired, so it didn't take me by surprise.) Disappointingly, it gets very overused, sometimes being trotted out three lines in a row with only minor variations, and it has practically no payoff. As it turns out, there really isn't a reason that they shouldn't make Mr Ring-a-Ding laugh, except that his familiar giggle reveals his true identity as Lux Imperator, the God of Light, and a member of the Pantheon.

Between his jovial personality and his comedic lines ("Darn it, I was so big when I arrived! I should never have learned perspective."), Mr Ring-a-Ding is given considerable shades of grey for a villain, especially when we learn that he brought Helen Pye back to... well, a semblance of life anyway, which demonstrates that he can be a benevolent god (though there's a strong argument to be made that his decision wasn't made out of benevolence, but rather self-interest and manipulation). Had these been occasional moments hinting at greater character depth, I would've really appreciated these details, but it feels to me that these moments were the norm rather than the exception, so perhaps Mr Ring-a-Ding's scales tipped a bit too far in the direction of not-evil.

The one moment when Mr Ring-a-Ding does gain true menace is on the line, "Mister Reginald Pye, are you giving away my secrets? 'Cause you know how flammable old film stock is. What if your poor lady wife just burned?" Suddenly he turns into the Man Without a Face, the hands-down scariest villain from Sapphire & Steel, in adventure 4, who similarly made people disappear into film images. Had RTD leaned into this angle just a little harder, rather than leaving Mr Ring-a-Ding's powers unfocused, I think that could've made him truly terrifying.

So let's dig further into that point. The big problem with the story, from my point of view, is that Lux's powers and motivations are contradictory and illogical. For a couple of these, I've eventually managed to come up with possible explanations, but the others remain puzzling head-scratchers.

  1. What exactly imbued Mr Ring-a-Ding with life?

    • The simple answer, obvious onscreen, is: moonlight. But it can't just be moonlight, or every film being shown at a late-night drive-in would be leaping off the screen. Maybe it's important that this is a full moon, but my drive-in objection would remain unchanged, albeit less frequent a problem. Perhaps not just any moonlight would have brought Mr Ring-a-Ding to life; could it be some kind of celestial conjunction, only affecting the moonlight on this particular evening at this particular time in this particular place? (Mr Ring-a-Ding does say that it was "The chance of moonlight with reflection and electricity!" so maybe it requires a combination of those three otherwise-random elements? But the average modern family's living room is full of electrically-powered items that moonlight could reflect off, so you'd expect loads of TV characters being brought to life at night.)

    • A related question: if Lux is the god of (all) light, then why does this story suggest that his essence is only transmitted through moonlight specifically? In some ways, Lux behaves like a werewolf legend: moonlight causes a transformation in specific individuals for no scientifically-explicable reason. I'm not sure that's good enough for Doctor Who? (Or, for that matter, for storytelling in general; after all, even though it's not scientific, the werewolf legend does follow strict rules: in order to change into a werewolf, a person must first be bitten or scratched by a werewolf. There's no such constraint here, or at least, not a clear one.)

  2. Are Lux's powers coherent?
    Lux's powers should be potentially limitless, if he controls all light. But given the list below, he seems to be more the God of Film, because nearly all his powers seem film-based; then again, maybe that's just a limitation inherent to his current cartoon form?

  3. Are Lux's weaknesses coherent?
    First of all, I'm glad that Lux does have weaknesses. We see two of them, and a third is implied:

    1. In this form, anyway, he's tied to the original cartoon, and is irresistibly compelled to act out the musical number while it's playing.

    2. He's unable to leave the theater.

      • But the reason why he can't leave the theater is left frustratingly unclarified, made all the worse because this is apparently Lux's key weakness on which the entire story hinges.

      • Apparently, the idea is that Lux could never have gone outside during the day because the light would have always drowned him. But surely, as a god, he should be more powerful than that. We'll be coming back to this shortly.

    3. The movies that are being played in the Palazzo at all hours is what feeds him, which implies that he could be starved if the films stopped playing.

      • But it's not clear how they feed him, which in turn leaves the strategy of how to exploit this weakness vague. If Lux survives by consuming light — which is perhaps implied by the dénouement — then it would help to see shots of him, say, sucking in the light from the theater lamps, or the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, like the Eaters of Light.

  4. What's the relationship between Mr Ring-a-Ding and Lux Imperator?

    • On the face of it, this seems obvious too: Mr Ring-a-Ding is the cartoon character, and Lux Imperator is the God of Light inhabiting his form. However, previous gods were presaged by actual harbingers, in the form of Henry (for Maestro) and Harriet (for Sutekh). Here, the harbinger reveal happens when Mr Ring-a-Ding laughs, which suggests that he's the harbinger but not the actual god; except that this contradicts everything else in the story.

    • Later, Belinda muses, "So he's actually a god now? Infinite, invisible, intangible." So if he's only just now become a god, then what was he before?

    • Remote possibility: given that Rock Hudson's name stays on the marquee after the letters fall off to reveal "HARBINGER", might Rock Hudson be Lux's harbinger??? ...what's that you say? No? Well, drat.

  5. What does Lux ultimately want?

    • Initially, this isn't clear at all, which is rather problematic given that we're meant to be eager for the Doctor to stop his nefarious plans.

    • After the Doctor heals his burned hand, Mr Ring-a-Ding realizes that he could siphon off the Doctor's healing energy in order to build himself a body. But why he wants a body is likewise never made clear. Lux eventually reveals that he never goes outside because he's not a man, which implies that having a body will finally enable him to leave the theater. But later events reveal that Lux's true reason for going outside wasn't because he didn't have a body, but because absorbing the energy of sunlight would cause him to expand to the point of nonexistence. So if Lux stayed inside because he knew that he'd drown in the sunlight if he went outside, then why would the prospect of building a body get him excited to go outside, heedless of the danger? His motivations are 100% contradictory.

    • Lux's motivation for what he could accomplish outside is clearer: he dreams of unleashing nuclear "light" on the entire planet. That's actually a terrifying outcome, so it's a shame that the notion is frittered away on a single line in passing; it didn't sink in for me at all on my first viewing. All of this, again, is evidence that RTD needs a script editor to focus his ideas, and make them both workable and internally consistent.

Lux's defeat feels a bit easily achieved. In this sense, his story no longer resembles a werewolf fable but rather vampire lore: all it takes to kill him is a bit of sunlight, so all they have to do is metaphorically raise the curtains (in this case, by releasing him from the confines of the theater) and, poof, no more villainous god. The implication is that Lux has been essentially destroyed as an entity, now that he's dissipated and merged with the universe, which also feels questionable to me. How did Lux, the god of light, exist in any form in the universe if all it takes to kill him is the light from a single sun? If this were just a limitation of his current Mr Ring-a-Ding form, okay, sure; but the episode doesn't make it clear if that's the case. (What I want to believe is that this iteration of Lux has now reverted to the god's default state: drifting among the stars as motes of light, waiting to be refocused by moonlight and poured into a new body.)

So that covers the illogic of Lux Imperator, but he's not the only unclear element in the plot:

Aaaand then there's the mid-episode diversion into a false reality that's difficult to escape. (This is such a massive trope, showing up in nearly every TV episode that involves false realities and dreamscapes — including repeatedly in Last Christmas — that it's smart of RTD to have Belinda lampshade it: "We're still inside a bloody film! I hate it when they do that." Still, it would be awfully nice if, instead of having to lampshade all of his tropes to indicate that at least he's aware his writing is falling into somewhat lazy patterns, we could just avoid those tropes altogether.)

On one hand, the start of the sequence is brilliant, as we finally see the Doctor and his companion officially turned into animation (as opposed to animated projects like Dreamland and Shalka and all of the recent missing-episode reconstructions).

Their first attempt to escape the animated world, by advancing the film, leads to them thinking that they've reappeared inside the Palazzo Theater, when in fact this is just an illusion created by Lux. Despite my reservations about the trope, this first diversion is great, because the point of this police sequence is to illustrate the racism of the age ("You're inside a space reserved for white folk.") which the Doctor and Belinda, by walking around in the middle of the night and encountering only friendly people, have thus far avoided. My heart absolutely sank when I thought that Mrs Lowenstein genuinely had turned on them, and William Meredith gives such a menacing performance as the policeman that I was truly afraid for the Doctor and Belinda's safety. So for me, the reveal was really impactful that this version of the Palazzo was fictional, and I appreciated the way that the Doctor — who, judging from the expression on his face, had clearly figured out what was going on from the moment the policeman arrived — deduced the truth (from clues to which we, alas, weren't privy, except maybe members of the audience who are experts on 1950s police uniform design):

The interstitial sequences, as the Doctor and Belinda are trapped in a white void reminiscent of The Mind Robber, are as pleasantly trippy as that story, too. There's an especially disconcerting moment when the Doctor and Belinda appear to be staring (and stalking) right at us! And the direction is fantastic, as they walk right up to the glass (which, from our perspective, shows distinct reflections that become more obvious the closer they approach) and ultimately push it out of the screen. Honestly, I was half-expecting their arms to pop out of my TV screen in 3-D.

But then it all gets a bit weird, as the Doctor and Belinda find themselves in a fictional sitting room with a group of what initially appears to be real-life Doctor Who fans from our Earth. On a fan-service level, this reveal is amazing, with callbacks to the Daleks (on Robyn's mug), Tomb of the Cybermen, Pertwee-era UNIT, the third Doctor's sonic screwdriver, the fourth Doctor's scarf, a K-9 mug, several shout-outs to Blink (including on Lizzie's mug), the eleventh Doctor's fez, the Meep, and in the background, a poster that might be a Mantrap, and what looks like shelves groaning with Doctor Who VHS tapes (I think I see the UK Key to Time box set, no?). If only they had a Dapol Mel figure somewhere! (I would be able to sniff it out if it were there.) And, like Love & Monsters on a much smaller scale, this sequence captures some of the magic of fandom and the friendships it inspires. (Mind you, some of those friendships dissolve 20 years later when those friends turn out to be racist and/or transphobic bigots, but you can't have everything.)

But the point of this sequence is... hard to fathom. It does, at least, provide an opportunity for one of the fictional fans to point out the obvious resolution — though, here again, I'm not sure that "hey, look at the massive trope I'm happily putting in my story" is the very best move for a scriptwriter to make, and this is now the second time in Lux that a trope has been lampshaded, as if that magically makes it clever rather than lazy — but it does enable the Doctor to clarify why burning up Lux's film wouldn't destroy him, and also provides a touchpoint for later in the episode, when Belinda catches on to the Doctor's meaning ("Lizzie, Hassan, they told us. They told us what to do. They told us the plot."; though why the Doctor has to be coy about it, when Lux created those characters and was presumably monitoring their whole conversation, is unclear) and prepares to blow up the film room.

It's times like this when I think to myself something like, "What if, instead of writing it himself, RTD had assigned Lux to Jamie Mathieson...?" and sigh wistfully.

Turning to characters — another of the story's great elements — Lux is a lovely proactive story for the fifteenth Doctor. The diner scene is one of his real high points, first when he explains to Belinda why he doesn't expend time and energy battling every racist society he visits, and second when he gives Mrs Lowenstein hope.

Even though the resolution feels far too simple and unearned, the short sequence of animated Belinda and the Doctor realizing that strong emotions give them depth is not just an apt metaphor, but also a great excuse to persuade them to open up to one another. This is especially true of the famously-private Doctor, who still tends to clam up despite his years of Earthbound therapy.

It really doesn't take much to enable a story to show off Gatwa's acting skills — the man's talent involuntarily radiates out of his pores like... well... the only analogy I'm coming up with is Gwendolyn Post after the Glove of Myhnegon is severed from her arm, but if you've seen Revelations, you know what I mean! Anyway, how can you not love the self-satisfied (but only semi-serious) hands-on-hips pose that the Doctor strikes, with impeccable timing, on the line "It is a vortex indicator, which I am going to call a Vindicator! Yeah?" It's so endearing! And Gatwa's delivery of the line "Belinda Chandra. This is the fun bit, honey: the clothes!" might be my favorite of his yet. And truly, the clothes really are one of the fun bits: not only does the Doctor look dapper in his lapis-lazuli suit with pink bow tie, I absolutely love his period conk hairstyle, its waves gleaming under the lights in the diner.

Traditionally, a companion's second episode is their opportunity to prove their mettle, to demonstrate why they deserve to stay in the TARDIS. With Belinda, it's a bit different; she's already amply demonstrated that she's gutsy and willing to give her life to save others. Lux, therefore, becomes more about how (or whether) Belinda is going to settle into the Doctor's time-travelling life. Will she actively join him in his investigations and his world-saving exploits, or will she insist on staying put in the TARDIS until he gets her home?

Well, evidently, a materialization in the 1950s was the perfect lure for Belinda, who — despite her overriding longing to see her parents again — can't resist the opportunity to step out into the past. And once she's there, all it takes is the irresistible prospect of coffee in a genuine 1952 diner to convince her to stay for a bit, and perhaps dig a little into the mystery of the padlocked cinema.

Now that The Robot Revolution has completed our crash-course in Belinda 101, Lux is in the favorable position of being able to slowly explore some of her character and backstory. And, folks, I continue to really like what I see. Belinda shows off her intelligence, cleverly working out what it is that the Doctor needs her to do (in her place, I'm not sure I would've figured out "blow up the film canisters" from "It means, I know what time it is!"), and her empathy (for Rock Hudson, and the three fans). It's becoming clear that, as a forthright person, Belinda is sometimes overconfident in her opinion, has a tendency to be dismissive ("ridiculous!" is rapidly becoming her catchphrase), and sometimes speaks before she thinks ("God, you're so annoying!"), but she has the emotional awareness to realize when she's potentially hurt someone, and the courage to apologize. So she's already shaping up into a well-rounded character with idiosyncratic strengths and flaws.

Lux advances us pretty quickly down Belinda's character arc from deeply distrusting the Doctor at the start, to — by episode's end — trusting him unreservedly and caring for him so deeply that she even kisses his hand with affection. ("And hey, those things we said when were scared, they're still true. So let's go out and face them together, okay?") But I suppose, travelling in the Doctor's company and seeing how fiercely he fights for the well-being of others, you would get attached to him pretty quickly, wouldn't you?

We also learn a little bit about Belinda's parents, including that her mum plays in the London Regency Orchestra! That's such a cool bit of companion family history!

Last week, I expressed a hope that Belinda's medical expertise would play a more significant role in the scripts, and this is exactly what I meant. Not only does her medical training take over when she looks at the Doctor's burned hand, but this line demonstrates both her skillset and her deductive abilities: "Mr Pye! I've seen your fingers, mate, that's nicotine. I know you smoke. Give me your matches, right now!"

This second episode also blesses us with more lines that Varada Sethu can seize and make her own, and so we wind up with a handful of really spectacular deliveries that make me love this actress even more. I love the way Belinda's mood turns on "He makes me laugh so much! And I would really, really like to see them again. Please.", "This bit I like!" (as she does a pirouette), "What don't I get?", "Are you all right? Come here, let me have a look. I know, I, I know, know, doctors always make the worst patients, but trust me; I know what I'm doing.", "Yes! I'm sorry if I didn't before, but oh my god, I trust you, yes!", and I love her shocked reaction to the sonic screwdriver, and especially her fantastic horrified reaction when she realizes the people on the film strip aren't just photographs.

Also can we take a moment to talk about THAT DRESS. Almost every companion gets her character-defining fashion moment — I'm thinking of Dodo in Toymaker, Romana in City of Death, Ace in Fenric, Clara in Robot of Sherwood, Bill in Smile — and this week, Belinda makes a strong statement almost right out of the gate. Her 1950s dress has a gorgeous silhouette with its voluminous petticoats that swish like a dream. The lemon-yellow color looks super on Sethu, and that white lapel neckline is the killer detail. I mean, it's just a spectacular dress, and I couldn't stop admiring it. (Her bright red lipstick and especially her coiffed hairdo are striking too; Barbara would be impressed by her bouffant!) Bravo, bravo, bravo to the costume designers for this one. I love it when a truly special episode is accompanied by a truly special companion outfit.

I'm trying to decide whether it's weird that nobody in the story has a full-on Southern accent. Maybe in Miami they wouldn't, because southern Florida has always been one of those places that attracts loads of snowbirds from all over the east coast to mingle with the locals, so accents tend to level out. Then again, I'm not sure how early that started, or how much migration Miami was experiencing by the early 1950s?

Lewis Cornay gives a really sweet performance as diner server Logan Cheever. I loved the way his demeanor flips from excited to disbelieving in the middle of "Did you see? There was this explosion! I was shaken right down to my boots! It was like an almighty — what the flip is that?" And I especially liked his gentle delivery of this line, which could just as easily have been delivered gruffly; Cornay, however, picks the delivery that suggests Logan is, if not anti-racist, at least not deeply prejudiced:

Lucy Thackeray radiates sweet-natured melancholy as Renée Lowenstein, the mother of missing Tommy Lee. Her scene opposite Gatwa and Varada is the episode's real heart — showing the human tragedy behind Mr Ring-a-Ding's foray into our world, but also celebrating Mrs Lowenstein's resilience as she maintains a loving vigil for her son — all of which provides impetus for the Doctor and Belinda to solve the mystery of the haunted cinema and rescue its vanished patrons. The moment when hope flares in Mrs Lowenstein's eyes is beautiful, and gorgeously acted. Thackeray also nails her accent; along with William Meredith's policeman, Mrs Lowenstein is one of the only characters who has at least the tiniest hint of a Southern drawl, which helps her feel like a real person.

As projectionist Reginald Pye, Linus Roache tugs at the heartstrings with his distant, mournful looks. Pye's personality is mainly limited to "lonely widower" but it's a highly sympathetic character trait, and Roache is superb. He, too, sounds like he's been plucked right out of the 1940s, and I loved his delivery of the line "Because he showed me so much joy."

Among the other theater characters, Millie O'Connell does a bang-up job as the voice for Sunshine Sally, nailing her saucy 1940s accent with absolute perfection. In fact, I'd say she gave one of my favorite performances of the whole episode, so it's a real shame that Sunshine Sally wasn't brought to murderous life along with Mr Ring-a-Ding! Jane Hancock only has a couple of lines as Helen Pye, but she's a really important character in the narrative. Maybe this is essentially the real Helen, or maybe it's just how Reginald remembers her, but what shines through Hancock's performance is Helen's love. Bravo also to Ian Shaw as a very authentic-sounding newsreader, in the "atom bomb test" reel that later inspires Lux's masterplan.

Cassius Hackforth appears at the start and the end as Tommy Lee, who seems adorably geeky and enthusiastic; it's his expression that really sells the terror of Mr Ring-a-Ding emerging from the movie screen. Ryan Speakman gives a fun performance as the confused husband who slowly realizes that Mr Ring-a-Ding is actually talking to him from the screen.

Though I have reservations about their scenes, I really enjoyed the way the three Doctor Who fans are characterized. Appropriately, two of them — Lizzie Abel (Bronté Barbé) and Hassan Chowdry (Samir Arrian) — are hyper-enthusiastic fans, while the third — Robyn Gossage (Steph Lacey) — comes from the cynical, critical (albeit still enthusiastic) corner of fandom, which feels like a true-to-life ratio to me. (I promise that IRL I'm much more of a Lizzie/Hassan, though my reviewer's hat makes me feel more like Robyn!) I love Lizzie's TARDIS-blue nails, and that Robyn is revealed to be a wheelchair user! Yay! It's a sweet touch that they manage to survive past the end. (Unlike the neighbor's cat, RTD!!!) All three give fantastic performances, though as the main spokesperson of the three, it's Lizzie who makes the biggest impression. I really liked Barbé's delivery of "Yeah. But we're not important."

Mrs Flood's (Anita Dobson) appearance in 1952 Miami took me completely by surprise. She hasn't aged a bit since then, which is a clue that she's either a being of extended lifespan (if not immortality), or she too can travel in time. I love her peach tweed suit, though I'm a bit disappointed that she didn't cosplay another companion outfit. This would've been a perfect time for her to trot out, say, Mel's greenish-grey pajamas (or Ray's Minnie-Mouse hairbow) from just a few years later, in 1959.

Last week, Murray Gold's music was really successful in channelling a 1950s vibe, so it feels a little weird that, this week, he doesn't even try. The most successful moment of 1950s music in the whole story is the brief clip of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" as the Doctor drags Belinda off to the wardrobe room. I do love his Hanna-Barbera music in the animated sequence, the score as Mr Ring-a-Ding starts to render in 3-D, and the creepy musical sting just after Logan says, "Every night, the movies keep playing to an empty house." Unfortunately, Gold's choice of incidental music usually undercuts the story's attempts to be sinister and scary; for example, when the opening sequence cuts to the projection room, the music turns goofy like a 1940s noir-comedy. At other times, he reverts to his usual excessive glurge, like the swooping sad score that accompanies the revelation that the three fictional Doctor Who fans are effectively about to die. (Here, for the first time, I find the tears shed by the main characters — not just the Doctor, but Belinda too! — to be over-egging the pudding, because their emotions feel unearned. Which makes me a hypocrite, because to my embarrassment, I shed a tear for them too.)

I've already raved at length about the animation effects, but the effects team doesn't stop at those. There's a gorgeous shot of glowing blue energy flowing down the moonbeam, into the light from the projector, and rippling across the cinema screen. I also really like the effect of the celluloid burning up and setting the Doctor and Belinda free, and the film reels unspooling and flitting through the air to attack and restrain the Doctor.

In terms of physical effects, the Doctor's vortex indic — er, I mean, vindicator — is a nifty little piece of hardware that serves a very useful plot function. You know Tegan's gonna rip him a new one when she finds out he now carries one of these in the TARDIS.

All of the sets are just charming. The art-deco Palazzo Theater is gorgeous inside and out (hi, Penarth pier! clearly I need to visit you someday). The interior looks sumptuous with its bright reds (curtains, seats, and stairway carpet) and teals (columns, railings, and wall accents) and bronze fixtures. The diner interior is also a joy, with its multicolored jukebox, retro fountain-drink signs, and that classic diner counter with authentic sugar canisters.

I really, really enjoyed Amanda Brotchie's immersive direction. It doesn't hurt that she was given a gift of an episode to bring to life, but she does it with flair. Her establishing shots are spectacular, especially the convincing effects shot of a Miami street at night, lined with palm trees and vintage cars, with the TARDIS lit up by the pink neon glow from the diner sign. That's the kind of TARDIS shot we fantasized about during the wilderness years, and it's absolutely gorgeous. She lovingly frames languid shots of 1950s period details — like the close-ups of the movie projector — and also gorgeous close-ups of the regulars. I really enjoyed her use of perspective, too, in shots like Mr Ring-a-Ding dancing in the foreground while the Doctor yells "cut!", and Pye lighting matches in the film closet while reels of film dangle to the floor in the foreground. The angled theater set with its elevated stage enables Brotchie to incorporates some really fun angles, as in the low-angle shot of Belinda shielding her eyes from the projector beam as the Doctor calls out for Mr Pye (followed by a wide-angle shot from the top of the stairs as the Doctor and Belinda step off the stage), and various shots of the Doctor and Belinda trying to pinpoint the tap-dancing noises. I also loved the shot of the projector beaming directly at the camera, with the Doctor and Belinda standing to either side of it; the wide-angle shot of the Doctor and Belinda goggling at Mr Ring-a-Ding; light from the two projection cameras coming to bear on Belinda and the Doctor; and Belinda racing up the far staircase as the film drags the Doctor up the center aisle. I've already praised several of the effects shots, but the effects team helped create another one of my favorite sequences: Reginald and Helen Pye dancing, while she gradually fades from grainy flickering black-and-white to full color. (It's such a gorgeous sequence that I wish they'd left her in monochrome a bit longer!)

This week I managed to get myself out of bed at 3:02 am! 1952 Miami is a big motivator, y'all. But not enough of a motivator for me to make myself any kind of fun snacks; not even tea! Maybe I'll do better next week. Horror kind of calls for a 3 am snack, no?

Minor points:

There are times when a truly spectacular story concept causes everyone to up their game, from script to design to effects to music, resulting in an undisputed classic. Lux is not one of those all-out triumphs; it nails 2 out of 4 (design and effects), but can't quite reach near-perfection. What's most memorable about Lux is its showstopping glitz — the mixture of animation and live-action, the setting, the period costumes, the unrestrained imagination (emphasis on that first word). But underpinning that glitz is a script that just doesn't hold together. Rather than carefully crafting a plot that would've justified all of the boundless ideas he wanted to bring to life, RTD has — yet again — opted for the lazy route, with a script in his trademark freewheeling style that doesn't really even bother to put the necessary pieces in place, because that action he's eager to get to is just so exciting. The story's saving grace is that it really is just so exciting; despite its serious flaws, Lux still manages to be one of the series' most memorable episodes. But with more thought and effort, it could've been a home run.

posted: 25 April 2025

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