Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Hannah Sole | TV | April 21, 2025
Previously, on Doctor Who: Fifteen and Belinda overthrew an incel but the TARDIS couldn’t get Belinda home to May 24th 2025 afterwards as something very terrible has happened.
This week: We’re in Miami in 1952, and there’s a spooky abandoned cinema, some animated shenanigans and a couple of fourth wall breaks. Spoilers incoming!
Far and away the best thing about ‘Lux’ is the delightful Alan Cumming, who voices Lux, the blue pig-nosed Mr Ring-a-Ding. ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ he says, a lot. Because he will crawl out of the cinema screen like the girl in The Ring, and then you’ll magically disappear into a cartoon. And when he does eventually laugh, it’s that terrible arpeggio laugh from ‘The Giggle’, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s a family laugh?
Belinda gets to wear her first time-travel outfit and it really is a fabulous frock. 1950s Miami is a little less fabulous, what with the racism and segregation, and the 15 missing people who may or may not have been eaten by a cartoon. Belinda and Fifteen are only meant to be there for a moment to calibrate some kind of sat nav to try and get the TARDIS back to May 24th, but Fifteen can’t resist a mystery, and so Velma and Fred have a quick stop to see what’s happened.
Poor Mr Pye the projectionist is still in the otherwise abandoned cinema, a kind of emotional hostage to Mr Ring-a-Ding, who bursts out from the curtains with a big ta-da. Fifteen and Belinda are momentarily enchanted by the cute wee cartoon man with the tap-dancing and the big sad eyes, until Fifteen gets a whiff of eau de big bad, Mr Ring-a-Ding does That Laugh and Fifteen realises he’s one of the Gods of Chaos. Mr Pye distracts Mr Ring-a-Ding with his theme tune, which he can’t resist performing, and therefore buys them a minute or so. Mr Pye has been ‘feeding’ Lux with movies in exchange for a magically animated version of his dead wife. Crikey, that’s bleak…
Once Fifteen and Belinda realise the missing people are trapped in images, they ask Mr Ring-a-Ding to release them, but he ‘immortalises’ Fifteen and Belinda instead, zapping them into a cartoon. And that’s where this episode gets really weird and meta. They ‘flesh themselves out’ by creating emotional depth and gradually become 3D. Then, they try to break the frame by rolling the film, as if to scroll out. When that doesn’t work, they push through the fourth wall, and climb out of the telly where they meet some Whovians watching the episode.
The Whovians give them some tips for how to save the day, because it’s so obvious they figured it out ages ago, and wait, is this f*cking play about us?
“I knew this would happen because it was leaked online. RIP Doctor Who.”
Fifteen and Belinda stop the film from rolling, it catches fire and they fall out into the theatre again. Mr Ring-a-Ding spots Fifteen healing his burn with regeneration energy and decides to harvest this to make himself a body and be a real boy. Turns out, what he really wants is to go outside. As Mr Ring-a-Ding starts to grow and become 3D, Belinda gathers the film stock. Mr Pye says farewell to his dead wife and set all the reels on fire, blowing a hole in the wall of the theatre just as the sun rises and Mr Ring-a-Ding embraces the dawn. The sunlight is basically an all you can eat buffet for Lux. He ascends to the heavens, embracing the light of creation, becoming everything and nothing all at once. He is risen, y’all. And then the lost 15 return, and all is well with the world again. Apart from Mr Pye who is now alone and his cinema is wrecked. Let’s not dwell on the details.
How much does Belinda know?
Did Fifteen tell her he was a Time Lord in episode 1? She knows this at the start of episode 2. This wouldn’t perhaps stand out so much if there hadn’t been the knowledge of the TARDIS’s name last week. Also, when Fifteen uses some bigeneration energy to heal himself, her reaction to this felt odd. It felt like something a medical professional would have more questions about.
Seriously, what’s the deal with Mrs Flood?
I joked that she was the Master last week, but as the pantheon of gods is alive and well, this would suggest she is more of a god than a Time Lord. It’s just a bit… come on, we did this whole thing last year with Susan Twist, the actress who popped up all the time in cameo roles until she was revealed to be a harbinger of Sutekh. Twist’s characters were all different though, so Mrs Flood seems to be important all on her own. Is she an anagram? If she turns out to be a god called Dolf Roms who lives on Folsom Rd, I am going to be mad. Wait. Old Forms. Is that it?
What is she doing though? She doesn’t seem to be up to anything, except observing and being a bit mischievous. However, she does break the fourth wall, which links her to Lux’s powers and suggests something godlike. So she’s powerful, and always present, but with an unclear impact on the story itself… Ding ding! She’s Disney. Solved it. And she’s going to CANCEL DOCTOR WHO.
“Limited run only. Show ends May 24th.”
May 24th is the air date for the penultimate episode of this season as well as the ‘locked’ date that the TARDIS can’t get too. Now. Bear with me. There’s been a lot of talk about whether Doctor Who is getting renewed, if it’s going on hiatus, if Disney are dropping out… what if those ‘leaks’ and rumours are all part of a meta PR stunt? The Whovians thought they would cease to exist when Fifteen and Belinda left them, and yet they found themselves together again as the end credits rolled, jubilant to have survived. There’s something fishy going on here, and no mistake. FISHY.
Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey Stuff
Did you catch one of Murray Gold’s Eleven themes popping up in the soundtrack?
The Whovians’ favourite episode being ‘Blink’ was a great touch. It’s both honest and diplomatic, being a Moffat episode from Davies’s first era as showrunner.
The Whovians’ props and costumes had so many Easter Eggs it would be impossible to list them all, but special shout out to the Meep shirt and K-9 mug!
The bigeneration left some energy hanging around to fix boo-boos. Handy, that. See what I did there? From the time with Ten’s spare hand? No?
How many weird gods have we seen now? There was the dancing toymaker, the bat-faced one, the singing one, and now the other singing one… That seems like a disproportionate amount of musically-inclined gods so far.
The TARDIS isn’t hiding as well as she used to; she’s noticed by the woman in the diner, and Mrs Flood points out when she’s leaving at the end of the episode as well. Is something wonky with the perception filter?
“I have toppled worlds. Sometimes, I wait for people to topple their world. Until then, I live in it, and I shine.” Patience isn’t really the doctor’s strong suit, but Fifteen’s definitely radiant no matter what the occasion, so I’ll allow it!
