Doctor Who review: “Praxeus” offers a satisfying, if poorly placed, group adventure

Doctor Who follows up one of its most groundbreaking episodes with a solid team adventure that still can’t help but feel slightly underwhelming in comparison.

After the events of “Fugitive of the Judoon,” pretty much any episode of Doctor Who that didn’t immediately dig into the fallout of the introduction of another new Doctor was going to feel a little bit like a waste of time. T

hat problem is compounded by an episode like “Praxeus,” which does take place immediately after its predecessor – it’s the story of Team TARDIS following up on the strange events mentioned in “Fugitive of the Judoon’s” final moments,  but somehow doesn’t touch on the issue everyone actually wants to know more about at all.

Which is a shame, because “Praxeus” is probably the strongest team adventure of the Chris Chibnall era, a fact that may or may not get lost in the fact that it doesn’t give us any new information about the Ruth Doctor, the destruction of Gallifrey or any of the season’s other ongoing arcs. It’s an hour that finally strikes a strong narrative balance between the Doctor and her three companions, giving each member of Team TARDIS something significant to do and allowing them to have a real impact on the story.

To be fair, you could make the argument that this balance between the three companions – and the various secondary characters the story also features – is only possible because Thirteen takes a deliberate back seat for the bulk of the episode. But, perhaps that’s merely Chibnall’s way of handling the fallout from introducing another incarnation of the doctor last week. After all, we don’t need to see Thirteen’s reaction if she’s not around as much, right?

There’s a lot to recommend about “Praxeus” on its own terms, though. It’s got a layered, complex story with three competing mysteries across three different continents that all eventually come together in the end in a way that feels satisfying. It’s another cautionary tale in the vein of “Orphan 55”, focused on the ways that humanity’s over-reliance on plastics has both endangered their species and put the planet itself at risk. And it introduces a handful of strong secondary characters, who are all likable, interesting and who have their own arcs going on separate and apart from their run-ins with Team TARDIS.

One of the things that always annoyed me about Steven Moffat’s tenure as Doctor Who showrunner was the fact that his Doctors often met a bunch of humans who never felt like fully formed characters. Instead, they were generally used as plot devices of varying degree, and as a result, it’s hard to really remember who any of them were. (I’m trying to name one that wasn’t, say, Vincent Van Gogh, and coming up embarrassingly short.)

Thankfully, Chibnall seems to be moving away from that, and has so far given us a variety of complex and detailed characters for the Doctor and friends to interact with. From “Orphan 55’s” Kane to the show’s depiction of Nikola Tesla and his assistant, these have all been three-dimensional people that I as a viewer have wanted to get to know. (Even if, as in Kane’s chase, I ended up not liking them very much.)

In “Praxeus”, we meet several charming characters I would very much like to run into down the road: Vlogger Gabriella who loses her partner Jamilla in the episode’s opening moment, missing astronaut Adam and his somewhat estranged, difficult husband Adam who’s on the hunt for him once his landing craft goes missing and a pair of Madagascar scientists. They’re all connected across various continents by a mysterious illness that kills its victims in a particularly gruesome, painful fashion that involves things that look an awful lot like bones encompassing and eventually destroying their bodies. (It’s very gross.)

The multi-continent nature of the story means that Team TARDIS is largely separated for the bulk of the story with the Doctor, Ryan, and then Yaz and Graham set off on three separate journeys that all end up connected in the end. Your mileage may vary on whether you find the birds falling out of the sky creepier than the alien hideout that Yaz and Graham stumble upon, but either way. It’s nice to see everyone get something substantial to do.

Ryan’s team up with vlogger Gabriella is fun and interesting, and the pair isn’t as awkwardly flirtatious as his last sidebar adventure with Bella back in “Orphan 55”. Yaz and Graham make an oddly charming duo together, and we’ve all been waiting a long time to see Yaz get to take charge of a story in this way.

The fact that Yaz is the one companion who’s so invested in pushing back against the Doctor – taking risks, following her own hunches, insisting that her plans aren’t as reckless as others believe. Out of all of Team TARDIS, she’s the one most interested in being like the Doctor, rather than just having adventures with the Doctor. This is interesting in and of itself, of course, but even more so when we consider that this particular regeneration isn’t one that seems to want to keep her companions particularly close, emotionally speaking. We’ve already seen her refuse to let them in on more than one occasion – most recently, last week. Does Yaz want to be more like the Doctor so Thirteen will finally let her in? It’s possible.

And then, of course, there’s Graham, who spends a lot of this episode in the background of the group, but manages to serve as its emotional and moral compass at the same time. His quiet conversation on the beach with Jake about love and loss and marriage was stunningly good, and Bradley Walsh did it all without ever even mentioning the wife he lost back in season 11’s first episode.

But, as generally entertaining as “Praxeus” is, it doesn’t do a lot in the way of pushing the season’s narrative forward. Which feels disappointing after “Fugitive of the Judoon,” even if maybe it’s not supposed to. Oh well. Maybe we’ll get back to it next week?

What did you think of this episode of Doctor Who? Let us know your thoughts  in the comments.