First broadcast 19 April 2025.

With the TARDIS unable to return to May 2025, the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) instead lands in 1953 Miami. There he and Belinda (Verada Sethu) discover a mysterious closed cinema, and a missing persons case that leads them inside. There they encounter one of the strangest foes the Doctor has ever faced: a cartoon character inexplicably come to life.

I suspect a lot of viewers will be delighted by “Lux”, an ambitious and bold stretch in storytelling that is quite unlike many things the series has done before. Indeed to find something as off-kilter as the Doctor and his companion confronting a cartoon character, being turned into cartoons themselves, and even contemplating their own fictional status, one has to go all the way back to 1968’s serial “The Mind Robber”. I positively adore that story, but I did not adore “Lux”, and I am struggling to pinpoint exactly why that is.

This new episode comprises the latest in the recent “Pantheon” story arc, in which the Doctor has been encountering a growing number of inter-dimensional beings self-identifying themselves as gods. After facing gods of games (in “The Giggle”), music (“The Devil’s Chord”) and death (“The Legend of Ruby Sunday”), the Doctor must now face the god of light – personified as a old-fashioned theatrical cartoon character. Clearly these encounters are going to ultimately lead somewhere, but for now they seem to all largely follow the same pattern: a being of seemingly infinite power gloats for 40 minutes before being defeated by some innate, often arbitrary flaw. I quite liked the Maestro in “The Devil’s Chord” last year, and while there is some terrific design work and animation behind Lux – and great voice acting by Alan Cumming – it all feels a little too repetitive. That is despite its unique, self-aware spin.

When magically trapped inside a strip of celluloid, the Doctor and Belinda are first transformed into cel-animated cartoons before breaking out of the frame entirely and entering the ‘real’ world. There, the Doctor meets a trio of enthused Doctor Who fans who have been watching the episode play out. It is an impressively bold creative choice. I absolutely hated it.

Sometimes all it takes to shift from general enjoyment to active dislike is one bad scene. Mocking the artificiality of narrative entertainment is nothing new: upon the Doctor and Belinda’s transformation I was immediately reminded of Chuck Jones’ remarkable 1953 animated short “Duck Amok”. Breaking the ‘fourth wall’ between fictional environment and audience is not new either, particularly considering the BBC’s current Who distribution partner Disney. Robert Zemeckis’ comedy Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and the more recent Mickey Mouse short “Get a Horse” (2013) draw a huge amount of entertainment out of the concept. There is absolutely room for Doctor Who to play with its own fictional identity. It is an idea already successfully played out in series including Xena: Warrior Princess and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Here it plays out like a momentary stunt: a gag that writer Russell T. Davies defuses and retreats from within minutes of it starting.

I am absolutely overthinking this, but the representation of the audience as a trio of adult science fiction geeks also felt like a huge missed opportunity. It felt weirdly snide and smug at the same time. I have always felt the perfect viewer for Doctor Who was the intelligent eight-year-old. The fans – and I include myself here – may obsess over the series but should never actually be the target audience. Imagine a scene of Gatwa’s Doctor emerging from a television set, to comfort a terrified child hiding from Lux behind a sofa. To come so close to such a perfect moment, only to waste it, is particularly frustrating. Furthermore, if three geeks is Davies’ envisaged audience for his series, then it says a lot about the current state of Doctor Who – and I am not sure if any of it is good.

What makes the scene particularly disappointing is that the rest of the episode is generally very good. Belinda’s relationship with the Doctor visibly develops and softens in a believable way. Early scenes address segregation laws in 1950s America smartly and without disrupting the flow of the drama. The performances, notably Linus Roache as a tortured projectionist, are very strong. Above all, the villainous Lux looks absolutely incredible and is brilliantly realised. Amanda Brotchie directs the episode superbly, and I’m very happy to read she has another episode behind the camera this season.

Many people will watch this episode and absolutely adore it, and – apart from my one episode-breaking dislike – they’re not wrong. If I get really irritated by a scene, however, or even actively embarrassed on its behalf, then personally the whole enterprise gets soured.