Doctor Who review: Team TARDIS shines in an old school romp

Doctor Who season 11 continues with Jodie Whittaker’s most traditional episode yet, which feels perfectly familiar, in all the best ways.

In most respects, “Kerblam!” is a very old-school sort of Doctor Who episode. Its story follows a generally predictable pattern and it feels the most like a traditional installment out of anything else we’ve seen this season. There’s a straightforward mission with a clearly defined villain to fight, as well as some entertaining hijinks along the way. Prior to the bulk of Steven Moffat’s tenure, this sort of episode was basically the blueprint for the show in large part. (That is, until Moffat’s preference for twisty, season-long stories took over.)

And it feels comforting, in its way, like a big fuzzy sweater. This is the sort of Doctor Who story you curl up with a cup of tea and a blanket and just enjoy from start to finish. Sure, it probably won’t stick with you much beyond your water cooler debrief about it at the office tomorrow, but that’s okay. Not everything has to be groundbreaking. Sometimes stories can just be enjoyable. And this is, in spades.

Plus, evil mail robots and killer bubble wrap is basically the most Doctor Who kind of enemy. If only the classic series had thought of the exploding packaging plot – think of what they could have saved on special effects!

The basic premise of “Kerblam!” is pretty simple. The Doctor receives a mysterious package from the “Kerblam Man” – a bit of apparently widespread intergalactic advertising I’d have loved to see – begging for help. Subsequently, Team TARDIS heads to the moon Kandoka, home of the retailer’s headquarters.

The group splits up to play detective and track down the person who asked for help, and it’s all a fairly entertaining romp through the difficulty and drudgery of life in a corporate warehouse. (One which spies on its employees and tracks their every movement at that!) This leads to several entertaining and generally hilarious moments, as Yaz is sent to the fulfillment department, Thirteen and Ryan head to packing, and Graham gets stuck being a janitor. Each gets their own brief moment to shine and there are plenty of jokes and sly jabs toward Amazon, which is basically our Earth’s version of Kerblam. (The only positive here is that I can absolutely see Jeff Bezos eventually building us all little adorable Twirlys at some point in the future.)

Their search for answers is surprisingly complicated and manages to pull off a few genuine twists, complete with several fake-outs about the source of the request for help, as well as the actual villain who’s trying to erode the public’s trust in technology by way of a terrorist attack. Hats off to new writer Pete McTigh, who gives us an episode that handles its dodges and obfuscations so artfully that the final reveal manages to feel both satisfying and like something we never saw coming.

Outside of the main story, there are plenty of strong, smaller character moments, and a few things for longtime fans. The box that sets off the story contains the delivery of a fez, presumably ordered back when Jodie Whittaker looked like Matt Smith. There’s a throwaway line about the time the Doctor met Agatha Christie. (Hi, season 4’s “The Unicorn and the Wasp”!) Thirteen neutralizes another threat using Venusian aikido, and I assume that somewhere, Jon Pertwee is still smiling about all this.

The revelation that adorable nerd Charlie is actually a secret activist revolutionary was surprising – and there was some rather well-done tension leading up to his unmasking. I’m not entirely sure that I buy this character – who couldn’t even talk to a girl he liked – as some kind of tech genius supervillain who plots mass murder to make a point about labor laws, but maybe that’s the point.

There’s something eerily timely about making this kind of guy the villain of our piece, and it’s slightly disappointing that there wasn’t more attention paid to how he actually became such a radicalized individual. The core of Charlie’s argument – that people will eventually be replaced by robots and that’s bad for everyone trying to survive – is a fair one, but I don’t know that Doctor Who was ever going to be the proper forum for discussing the possible perils of late-stage capitalism.

Still, having an actual bad guy to face off against allows us to see the heroic, protector-of-the-universe side of Thirteen in greater detail. Prior to now, Team TARDIS has mostly had to deal with monsters that weren’t entirely evil, or at least who weren’t trying to harm anyone on purpose. (And some, like the Thijarians from “Demons of the Punjab,” weren’t even villains at all.)

Here, Thirteen gets a distinct bad guy – and, more importantly, a bad ideology – to push back against and, as a result, we finally get to see Jodie Whittaker in what feels like Full Doctor Mode. We don’t get the sense that Thirteen necessarily disagrees with Charlie on some of his large points. In fact, it’s easy to see how Kerblam and companies like it are exploiting human desperation. But she’s never okay with bullies or injustice or, you know, senseless murder, and it’s nice to get to see Whittaker get the chance to display the steel in her Doctor’s spine.

The episode’s conclusion is satisfyingly murky, and refuses to wrap everything up in a neat bow. Charlie is sacrificed on the altar of his own obsession, and the Doctor has to let it happen in order to save Team TARDIS (and thousands of faceless strangers). And Kira, probably the happiest and most well-adjusted character we’ve ever met on this show, is senselessly killed in one of Charlie’s explosive plastic wrap tests. Only, since we actually got the chance to know and like her a bit (thanks for that obsession with side characters, Chris Chibnall), her death actually feels like a real loss. Kerblam isn’t dismantled and despite HR director Judy’s pledge to make it a “majority organic” company again, there’s no likelihood that any of the real problems with its business plan or culture are solved. But for now, Team TARDIS has saved the day. And sometimes that’s all you can ask for from a Doctor Who story.

Doctor Who season 11 continues next Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on BBC America.