Doctor Who Reviews: "The Story & the Engine"

It’s always at least interesting when Doctor Who goes someplace it has never been before, and Africa (certainly Nigeria) has never been touched by the TARDIS. This was the right time for it, something that the Doctor even not-so-subtly acknowledges in a pretty good beat early on in “The Story & the Engine” where he talks to Belinda about how long he’s lived and how many bodies he’s inhabited, but this being the first time he has been black (a fact contradicted later this very episode), and that he has been treated differently than he used to in parts of the world as a result. And yet in Africa, he feels at home -a sentiment that Belinda relates to with her own feelings in Britain and visiting India. A black Doctor is the best excuse to facilitate black stories within the Doctor Who space -something epitomized too in this episode’s construction. It is the first story in the franchise written by a black man, Inua Ellams, and only the second directed by a black woman, Makalla McPherson (after Annetta Laufer, who directed “Eve of the Daleks”). And in fact, if not for a brief cameo by Mrs. Flood and an elderly woman glimpsed in a story of Belinda’s dedication as a nurse, it would be the only Doctor Who episode to feature no white people whatsoever.

None of this it seems has been emphasized much by the show in the press around this series -at least not from what I have caught. Which means it hasn’t caused a firestorm (yet) from the toxic contingents of the fan-base. But also it is perhaps indicative of how organically the show arrived at this point, which I think is the goal of the representational and diversity initiatives the worst people you know keep screeching about: to make it so that these stories feel like they belong. This episode does that fairly well, in fact it reinforces some of the core tenets of Doctor Who more broadly, one reason it is perhaps the best show of the series thus far.

In “The Story & the Engine”, the TARDIS sets down in Lagos, Nigeria 2019 -Lagos being a particular hub of energy for the Vindicator to recharge. While there, the Doctor sets out to visit a friend -whose connection is explained by the cold open. Omo Esosa, played by Sule Rimi (who also played Imperial turncoat Gorn in the Aldhani arc from the first season of Andor -reuniting with Varada Sethu here) was a child when the Doctor flew into his village and doused a terrible fire from the TARDIS before planting new seeds to ensure the crop grew back. Now Omo operates a barbershop and he tells this story to three friends as it plays out in crude but nice animation on a small projection screen. He has maintained a friendship with the Doctor since then and is even now expecting him, as a green light in the shop (next to a red one) seems to indicate to Omo that he will be coming soon.

Sure enough the Doctor does arrive, but on his way his suspicions are roused by missing persons posters hung around for Omo and his friends. He then finds that the shop is under new ownership of a mysterious Barber (Ariyon Bakare) and each time he cuts someone’s hair it almost immediately grows back and thicker than before. As he does this, the patrons are expected to tell a story -we hear one of Yo-Yo Ma meeting a Shaman in Botswana that ends on a cynical statement of the industrialization of the music industry (that almost feels of a timely piece with Sinners). But it really does not matter the subject of the story, so long as it is told -and Omo and his customers appear to be trapped there.

I won’t pretend as a white guy to really know what I’m talking about here, but I am aware of a certain African and black diasporic cultural significance to barbershops as spaces of social connection and storytelling -hairdressing and hairstyling itself being connected to those same things as well. And Ellams, who is Nigerian, is very intentionally bringing that critical cultural tissue into the Doctor Who universe as a root to build a story out of -a story about storytelling itself, in both mythic and modern expressions. Stories as valuable modes of communication and essential outlets of culture, and the effects -metaphorical or not- of giving up one’s stories. And that is what is happening here.

The Barber has transformed the shop into some trans-dimensional vessel that feeds on stories to keep it running -ripping them out as they are told. We see this in action when the Doctor tells a bittersweet narrative about Belinda’s life as a nurse -the stories it seems all have to come from a real place. He is drained in its aftermath. The shop itself operates very much like Howl’s Moving Castle, with the red and green lights indicating whether it is situated in space or in Lagos, and though people can enter none can leave, except for the Barber and the mysterious Abby (Michelle Asante), who is linked to his plan and who the Doctor recognizes from somewhere. Eventually it is revealed that in space the shop is above a giant robot spider weaving a web from all these stories. There is actually a moment where the Doctor disbelieves Omo and his compatriots about their inability to leave, only to open the door and find this to be the reality. And each time the shop disappears from Lagos, alarm bells ring out in the TARDIS, eventually prompting Belinda to go to the shop herself (it’s honestly not really necessary for her to have been left behind to begin with this episode).

Since the teaser at the end of “Lucky Day” revealed the spider, I had a sneaking suspicion it would be related to Anansi, the famous trickster god figure of West African folklore -and sure enough the Barber reveals himself as Anansi, as well as Dionysus, Loki, and several other similar gods in various cultural traditions. And as it looked like this was going to be another one of these gods the Doctor has had to contend with lately, it is actually a nice surprise for the Doctor to immediately discredit this -having apparently met most of these gods personally and can tell the difference. I don’t know if this was conscious subversion of the villain theme that Russell T. Davies has been building, but it was nice to have that nipped in the bud right as it was getting to feel like a crutch. Perhaps Ellams also realized the connection with the spider and Anansi would be too obvious. He does lean into it though in a different way.

The truth is that the Barber was once a human who told stories to strengthen the relationship between mortals and the gods -that he was tasked with doing this for millennia, thus considering himself the reason for their continued existence, their retained cultural power. He built the web -the “Nexus” to connect stories from all different cultures for them, and wished to receive recognition for that and the stories themselves, only for the gods to rebuke him and toss him aside. And now he wants to destroy the very thing he built for them, disconnecting the gods from the mortal stories of them -his accomplice in this, Abby, is really Abena, daughter of Anansi, who wants revenge on her father for purposely losing a bet that would have had her marry …the Doctor. And that is where the familiarity comes in -a captive of her father she had heard of the Doctor and yearned for escape with him. But the Doctor wanted to lose the bet too and couldn’t afford to take her -this we learn in a neat little pan around as the Doctor explains it was when they were a Fugitive, Jo Martin showing up for a single line as that still enigmatic incarnation. Abby though rather quickly loses her investment in the ordeal on learning that severing the gods from their stories will destroy them and make the human race much culturally poorer in the process.

Abby isn’t really done right by her ignorance here, not helped by the pace of these explanations, but Asante really gives a great performance through it. In fact the guest cast here is generally very good -Bakare is a real stand-out as well; and though Omo fades into the background the further the episode gets along, Rimi builds out a richness to his faith in the Doctor and his very particular deftness at storytelling. Something that manifests too in Asante in fairness, when she tells a story herself as she braids the Doctor’s hair -one appropriately about the braiding of hair during times of slavery to pass along maps to freedom in the hairline that slavers wouldn’t notice. This of course she does to the Doctor, freeing him and Belinda into the maze of the vessel that can take them to the engine and thus stop the Barber. When they do get there, a room full of antiquities from all over, the engine appears like a giant brain that when opened up reveals a kind of beating heart -”what else is a story?” the Doctor asks, and I really like that illustration. The Barber though arrives to stop them before they can apparently do too much damage. However in a point that is a little hastily done (it’s not entirely clear when or how the Doctor did this), but he connected himself to the engine -having an immediate effect, as he evokes Ernest Hemingway’s shortest story, though via his own less bleak version: “I am born, I die.” As is easily expected for a story about the power of one’s personal story, his history then becomes a hyper-fuel for the engine and we’re treated to that screen playing a hit list of moments from across the Doctor’s life.

What is modestly less expected though, given the track of this series I critiqued only last episode, is the Doctor extending a hand of sympathy towards his antagonist, who in a moment realizes the “never-ending story” the Doctor is providing the engine will cause it to blow up. The Doctor appeals to the Barber’s former mortality to get him to open the doors and free those captive patrons, and as the latter appears emotionally dejected, willing to go down with his ship as his long-sought plans of revenge go up in smoke, the Doctor doesn’t chastise him or belittle his point of view. He emphatically tells the Barber “I want you to live” (perhaps in echo of that iconic Ninth Doctor quote that just rang in his ears). What will his six-word story be -the Doctor declares confidently that it is not finished, urging the Barber to push through his revenge, to recognize that value in stories again. It’s actually a bit unexpectedly moving. Both leave the barbershop, just as the spider is destroyed -but the web remains stable, the gods’ link to mortals through storytelling is preserved.

There are some beats on the other side of the adventure that are really warming. The Nigerians credit Abby for keeping them alive, affirming that little redemption for her by bowing to her as living symbol of their storytelling link to the divine. And there’s a moment of pathos for the Barber, whose assertion he only wanted credit for his work reinvigorates that resonance for his character. We can all relate to that desire and the frustration at how he was treated. There is the suggestion of redemption for him as well, as Omo gives him a name, Adetokundbo -after his father, and implies the two will be in business together while a subtle look suggests even some amends with Abby -who herself balks at the idea that she, a god, received critical wisdom from Belinda (that wisdom being the pretty rote adage of “hurt people hurt people”, but it works okay and this is a show for kids after all). It again just emphasizes I think the care put into this story, and if not the characters exactly than the performances of those playing them.

Spare aspects of the sentiments in “The Story & the Engine” feel cheesy, but it is a cheesy I think that belongs in Doctor Who. While stories about the power of stories taken to such a literal degree might have a measure of pretension, when applied so vividly in this way of cultural lifeblood, and in a visual and representational context that denotes that theme, it can’t help but feel earnest. I like that this episode is a milestone but doesn’t draw attention to itself as one. I like how it relates its subjects, even in a sometimes convoluted way, as sincere expression on tradition and connection. And I like that it vindicates the Doctor as someone who helps in the end, who can still see humanity in his foes, especially after last week (there was no appeal to Conrad’s story being greater than his actions). It’s not a masterpiece, but it is the kind of episode I expected of the Ncuti Gatwa era from the start, in terms of both its texture and designs; a direction creatively I hoped to see from this show. I’m glad it has come at last. 

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