The Doctor’s attempt to teleport to the last location of the TARDIS goes wrong…badly. Not only does the process deposit the Doctor in the airless void of space, but it also leaves Graham, Yaz and Ryan there as well. Ryan and Graham awaken on a spacecraft whose captain accuses them of slowing her down. The Doctor and Yaz have been rescued by a ship whose captain makes the same accusation, and whose ship is falling apart. The Doctor manages to help that pilot, Epzo, pull off a survivable crash landing by ditching the aft section of his ship. The planet where the time travelers are reunited, known only as the Desolation, is the site of the Rally of the Twelve Galaxies – a race to survive to the finish line where the winner takes all and the loser loses it all, though the contestants are forbidden from killing one another. The Doctor, Graham, Ryan and Yaz are unable to claim the prize, but are likely to be killed by the planet’s harsh desert environment before anyone reaches the goal – a blue, box-shaped apparition known to the contestants as the Ghost Monument. But the Doctor knows this box as the TARDIS, and so the deadly race holds very high stakes indeed for the time travelers.
written by Chris Chibnall
directed by Mark Tonderai
music by Segun AkinolaCast: Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Bradley Walsh (Graham O’Brien),
Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Susan Lynch (Angstrom), Shaun Dooley (Epzo), Art Malik (Ilin), Ian Gelder (voice of the Remnants)
Notes: The thirteenth Doctor’s title sequence (and a new arrangement of the theme tune by Segun Akinola) makes its debut at the beginning of this episode. The Desolation is revealed to have been desolated by the Stenza, the species from which the previous episode’s alien enemy hails.
LogBook entry by Earl Green