Retrospective Discussion | Doctor Who | 1x02 "The Devil's Chord"
Retrospective Discussion | Doctor Who | 1x02 "The Devil's Chord"
Logline
When the Doctor and Ruby meet The Beatles, they discover that the all-powerful Maestro is changing history.
Written by: Russell T. Davies
Directed by: Ben Chessell
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Revisiting the two episodes that launched season 1 with a same-day release, I feel like my estimation of them has flipped somewhat. Watching them back to back on the day, I was more partial to "Devil's chord" — now it seems like masterful performances covering up a whole lot of nothing.
Jinkx Monsoon carries the show with her delicious hamming, it takes power to overshadow Ncuti Gatwa as she does here. Everything else seems rudderless, though — like it's only there to tie Monsoon's scenes together: Timothy Drake, for all his presumed unwritten music, really meant nothing to the plot.
The Doctor showing Ruby the devastation of 2024 without music was an entirely hollow nod to "Pyramids of Mars". Basically just a band plagiarising its own greatest hits. Even the Beatles are underwhelming in this story, and not just due to the premise that Maestro is gobbling up music.
That core of the story, as depressing as it is rightfully presented, is completely let down by the climax that is apparently just about finding the right "anti-chord" to banish Maestro? And the woefully underdeveloped Lennon/McCartney just happens to wander through the halls of Abbey Road and hit the right note to fill the CGI power bar?
Okay, I guess. But then "music rushes back into the world" and as a result we get ... a cheesy, lightweight pop song, arguably worse than the Maestro-era Beatles classic "I've got a dog"? That's hardly a celebration of music, more like a wet handshake.
I'm all there for Maestro's vaudeville villainy, and the basic story setup! The execution was just so disjointed that it might have been an episode of "The Muppet Show" rather than a purposely written, 45 minute single story.
One scene that will stay with me, and I feel would have been a better climax, is the silent moment where the Doctor's sonic cancels out all sound. In an episode where all hinges on music and its absence, that leaves a far bigger impression than (Ugh!) "There's always a twist at the end".
If I were to grade this episode out of ten, I'd give it four points for the idea, five for casting Jinkx Monsoon, but deduct three for story execution and another three for that awful song routine. Trois points!
the climax that is apparently just about finding the right “anti-chord” to banish Maestro?
I think this is the most "magical" episode of the season by a large margin, and as much as this sort of resolution makes sense for that kind of story...you have to really nail the emotional truth of the story to make the anticlimax works. In that sense, I agree that this episode doesn't quite make it there.
And the woefully underdeveloped Lennon/McCartney just happens to wander through the halls of Abbey Road and hit the right note to fill the CGI power bar?
I actually kind of liked that moment, though it would have been nice for the Beatles to be more involved prior to that point.
the silent moment where the Doctor’s sonic cancels out all sound
Definitely the high point, dramatically speaking.
it would have been nice for the Beatles to be more involved prior to that point.
Yeah, the whole Beatles strand relies on the viewer's forehand knowledge of (and investment in) the band, particularly John and Paul. It's surely a British thing, but also a generational one that I think RTD may have misjudged. The Beatles were surely huge for his generation, but he's well out of the age segments the BBC or Disney want to attract.
To me, more than a decade younger than RTD, the Beatles were a part of pop culture growing up, but their music is sort of meh, especially this early mop top, boy band era. So somebody much younger watching now might need some kind of in-show engagement with them beyond "this is how sad they'd be without music"...
Come on, we'd all be. What makes these guys so special? Same as poor Timothy Drake, nothing evident in the episode.
their music is sort of meh
Careful...
🤷 As another time traveler said, "they do get better". I'm just personally more interested in music made in the 50+ years(!) since the Beatles disbanded. Different strokes.
No, it makes sense - a lot of what makes them so important is that they did a lot of things first, but they have been done since.