Dr Who — Series 11: Episode 5 — The Tsuranga Conundrum

4th November, 2018.

Yes: it’s official! 

I think my favourite show has managed to revive … Beep the Meep … !

Ker-CHING!

Ahem!

You can tell I’m burbling, can’t you … ?

I am tired, after all: as I was at five, this morning, to get everything I need to do, done.

Including the Daily Teaser, since you ask!

And, yes: there’s a Bonfire Night one, tomorrow!

At any rate?

I’m knackered … 

But I’ve just seen the fifth episode of Doctor Who’s eleventh series.

And frankly?

OK, I’m thinking the central creature is … familiar … 

~≈§≈~

Episode 5 — The Tsuranga Conundrum — opens with the team — the Doctor, Graham, Ryan and Yas (Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole and Mandip Gill) — on an alien junkyard planet, looking for assorted bits, bobs and parts.

At least, they are … until Graham uncovers a sonic mine: one that almost fatally injures the team.

That almost … ?

Is because that are pick up by a passing ambulance ship: run by an intergalactic equivalent called the Tsuranga.

It’s on its way back to a Rhesus Base*: so that its passenger-patients can be comprehensively healed.

It’s only when the ship heavily automated ship goes through an asteroid belt, that trouble starts.

It picks up an extra passenger.

It picks up … 

The P’ting … 

~≈§≈~

Now … tired?

Yes, very much so, to be honest.

But still coherent enough — I think — to tell you I liked this episode.

Witty dialogue — “It’s eaten my sonic!” —, sympathetic supporting characters†, a well written plot, and a menacing monster?

It’s a great episode: solid SF, with a few science references — 51 is the atomic number of antimony, for example — a nicely done plot, and well worth watching for the third time in an evening.

~≈§≈~

Talking of THAT creature?

The P’ting is quite something.

Something that initially had me thinking of Beep the Meep, a monster from the of Dr Who Weekly.

That is — on reflection — more easily compared to the Slimer in Ghostbusters.

Ravenous, unstoppable … and downright silly.

Granted?   There’s a flaw: I felt Mandip Gill was a touch underused, again.

But on the whole?

Taking Ryan’s story forward, showing Graham’s funny side, and Yas’s ability to kick?

The Tsuranga Conundrum is another very strong episode.

*        I’ll be honest: I didn’t have the subtitles on, so couldn’t tell you the spelling.   Either ‘resus’ or ‘rhesus’ seems appropriate.   Resus is short for resuscitation.   Rhesus — taken from the name of the monkey — is a component of human blood.

†        From Brett Goldstein as the confident leader, Astos, Lois Chimimba as the nervous Mabil, Suzanne Packer and Ben Bailey-Smith as brother and sister, Durkas and the doomed General Eve Cicero, and Jack Shallop as the heavily pregnant Yoss?   This episode has a very confident supporting cast.