Last Saturday saw the return of Steven Moffat to Doctor Who – a fact that was initially met with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. Sure, he can write incredible Doctor Who, but has also written or been executive producer behind a good plurality of all Who stories ever made. Would this be the triumphant return of the legend behind the Empty Child, the Weeping Angels, the Vashta Nerada, the Silence and a large chunk of my generation’s childhood, or a reminder of why many viewers though Moffat’s style had worn thin?
In short… it was the first. Boom reminds me of Robert Holmes returning to Doctor Who for Peter Davison’s final story, The Caves of Androzani, after over half a decade’s absence. Holmes returned to the show as if nothing had changed and wrote the Doctor and the companion in the same style he always did, using the long time away from the show to refresh his style and bring a new perspective into his old tropes. Moffat has done this to almost an identical extent, except he didn’t kill off the Doctor. Moffat approaches every Doctor – from Ncuti Gatwa to Rowan Atkinson’s parody Ninth Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death – in the same broad strokes. Under Moffat’s pen, the Doctor is a complex space time being of immense power, whose words are weapons and who buries that power under a demeanour of world weariness, quick quips and a deep love of his companions and children. This is why the Tenth Doctor in Silence in the Library can be taken out and replaced with Matt Smith and barely anything changes. Moffat allows the actor to interpret this broad strokes approach, and it’s why he would’ve also done great work for Jodie Whittaker – not because he’s inherently better than her writers, but because his approach would’ve been identical to his past Doctors and he would have focused on the story.
There is nothing wrong with this approach, and it explains why Moffat’s return does feel so fresh. Moffat believes that the best Doctor Who is taking the character out of his comfort zone regardless of incarnation, which is why so much of his best work is about challenging Who format and convention, from Blink to Heaven Sent via A Good Man Goes to War. Boom is the exact kind of high concept storytelling I’ve been wanting a return to – in an alien war zone, the Doctor runs into action… and stands on a landmine. He can’t move. And that’s the premise. His only weapon are his words. And he’s SCARED. He’s trying to survive. Very few stories have the Doctor so entirely out of control of the situation. That’s an utterly brilliant concept, and it allows for the story to move in real time as every second and every movement by the other characters could make the situation worse. The Doctor has to stop the war and deactivate the landmine in however long he can without triggering it… Who rarely engages in pure suspense like this, and it allows Ncuti Gatwa to deliver what could end up being his defining Doctor Who performance. I think we’re going to be with Fifteen for quite a while, and hopefully we’ll get many more like this to come.
With mentions of fish fingers and custard, the Church of Papal Mainframe, the use of digital afterlives, repeating villain phrases and the use of Villengard as the off-screen antagonist, Boom plays like a Steven Moffat Greatest Hits, but unlike some of his episodes in the mid-2010s this doesn’t feel tired but instead a veteran writer reinterpreting those ideas for a new generation. The Ambulances (the Twist at the end for this episode) are a twisted version of Moffat’s first antagonist, the Chula nano bodies. Instead of seeking out to heal injured soldiers, the Ambulances seek to kill them in order to fulfil algorithms. Instead of dialogue that is snarky and hip for the sake of being hip, the Doctor and Ruby’s banter is instead built on them trying to distract each other from the situation at hand to calm the Doctor down. Ruby in particular is written almost exactly like Clara, but whilst I find Clara in later seasons way too self aware and meta to be relatable or even realistic as a person, here, it works! Ruby HAS to be snarky and self aware to combat the AI and also in order to keep up with the Doctor’s thoughts.
As well as his own work, watching Boom also reminded me of the work of other great guest writers from Moffat’s era. With its political edge and genre influences of horror and thriller, Jamie Mathieson’s influence is all over this episode. With the exploration of the Doctor’s relationship with war and his place in a cruel, lonely universe, I’m reminded of the scripts of my favourite Doctor Who writer, Toby Whithouse. And the episode’s dissection of faith as both a driving force for great personal enlightenment and values and the fine line between how its use of good and evil, Neil Cross’s complex 2013 work comes to mind. Boom is not so much Steven Moffat playing tribute just to himself, but to his whole era.
So yeah, let’s talk some of those themes. Without moving, the Doctor effortlessly bisects the relationship between faith, politics and militarism. The Doctor respects and values the importance of culture, faith and personal beliefs to guide a person or nation’s moral code, but when those values are corrupted, he will rage against those that have corrupted it. The Anglican soldiers are fighting an implied holy war against an enemy that literally doesn’t exist, they’re fighting an algorithm that exists to be an algorithm, using and exploiting the inherent goodness of values and belief systems that have survived long into the 51st century for profit. There is nuance and good to be found in all people and belief systems, but none to be found in the military industrial complex that serves to pit people against each other.
On top of that, the episode is an incredible look at the cold nature of AI. The AI dictated a war to be fought on an empty planet for the purpose of justifying itself, no matter who dies. The episode pits the humanity of the soldiers and what they fight for, in this case family and love, against the inhumanity of AI’s existence for the sake of existence. The Doctor destroys the algorithm through emphasising these contrasts, channeling his own panic and daring the landmine and the AI to destroy him and the planet… after which it will have no reason to exist. With nothing to lose, the Doctor takes down the system through just words. THAT’s how you SHOW the Doctor working when pushed to his limits, Moffat of 2015!
The episode’s production is extraordinary, the team used new innovative technologies to create an alien planet using a large screen that would create the background – an update of the matte paintings used in the 60s, and it’s a seamless effect that’s more effective than green screen. Shot entirely in studio (for the first time since The Happiness Patrol), the episode has an incredibly small cast (oh hello Varada Sethu new companion for next season, I know everybody’s going on about why she’s in the episode but this is 100% just an “Ian Marter in Carnival of Monsters” situation until proven otherwise), and one location – the crater. Doctor Who’s budget is so big now that instead of using a quarry, a quarry can now be made entirely from scratch!
In short, Boom is exactly how it sounds – it’s a burst of energy that pushes the Doctor to his extremes and tackles complex themes the way only Doctor Who can. This week, my most anticipated story of the season, with folk horror and Ruby on her own… When I heard rumours of 73 Yards being Doctor lite I was concerned because it’s still early days for this Doctor, but after such a showcase episode I feel like the Doctor can afford to take a step back for a week and let Ruby take over. Speaking of which, maybe next time, I’ll talk about the other extreme of Who – instead of all Doctor, how about no Doctor… it’s older than Love & Monsters…
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