Doctor Who (2024) Boom: An Adrenaline-Fuelled Comeback For Steven Moffat (Review)

Much like how I never thought we’d see the return of Russell T. Davies to Doctor Who in any capacity, nevermind showrunner, I never thought we’d see Steven Moffat returning to pen an episode. Back in Russell’s first stint in the showrunner chair, Moffat was the show’s most revered guest writer, penning four stories that are considered to be some of the best episodes of the whole modern era: the tremendously spooky Eccleston two-parter The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, the sublime dreamy romance of The Girl In The Fireplace, the stellar scriptwriting masterclass that is Blink, and the mysterious constantly intense narrative of Silence In the Library/Forest of The Dead. While I don’t like the latter story as much as others, all four are still showcases of what a fantastic writer Moffat can be – when he’s got limits.

Under the showrunner chair, Moffat’s run was still fun (even half of that is the nostalgia it gives me), but the story arcs became increasingly unfocused, Moffat’s weaknesses were no longer ignorable, and more casual fans felt alienated by the increased pandering to fans. His era wasn’t without highlights from him though. The Eleventh Hour is my favourite Doctor introduction episode, Heaven Sent is an utter tour de force, and he delivered a really solid final series with Series 10 and some of his most consistently solid writing in ages. And although I will always champion new talent for the show, now that Moffat’s had seven years to recharge his batteries and he’s focusing on standalone episodes, I was definitely looking forward to this. So did Boom go off with a boom or was it a whimper?

It was a boom. A very big boom.

Since we’ve been starved of a regular episodic series of the show since 2020 (not counting Flux which was all one story), I feel comfortable calling Boom the best regular episode of the show since The Haunting of Villa Diodati. Moffat has returned with a dark, stripped-back, and kinetic script that was unbelievably tense and, of course, unbelievably Moffat-y. 

I mentioned last week that this series was in desperate need of danger, and a sense of stakes that will force both the Doctor and Ruby to be scared and act fast. Well, Moffat already delivers with just the episode’s premise – on an alien battlefield, the Doctor rushes out to help and steps on a landmine, which will go off if his weight remotely changes in any way. After what seemed like quite a lengthy pre-credits scene, with a lot of secondary characters being established (including one which we’ll get to), the Doctor steps on the mine and from the moment the titles end to when the AI program is disabled, Boom never lets up for a second. 

While The Giggle was constantly energetic because it was throwing loads of cool images and scenes at us, this gets its tension from watching the cogs turn in the Doctor’s head as he figures out how to move on the landmine without setting it off, what he has to hold to keep the weight on the landmine the same, etc. While the script is brilliant with all these little details, it’s the performances that really sell this. For the first time, Ncuti’s Doctor and Ruby seem genuinely terrified, especially when Ruby is severely wounded later on, and Millie is really great here. The exuberance of her character is still here, but it comes out in her frantic desperation to both keep the Doctor alive in the first half of the episode, and keep herself alive in the second.

Ncuti, though, has finally been given some phenomenal moments. We were given teases of some of his lines in the trailers for this series but now we finally have context to these lines, they feel all the more impactful. This is the first time we’ve seen his Doctor’s seething anger, especially with this episode’s main theme of religion being used to start wars, and Ncuti really sold the Doctor’s disgust in this situation. It’s not quite the amazing vitriol that Eccleston is given to spout at Henry Van Statten in Dalek, but it’s close enough, and it’s the dialogue that Ncuti needed to bring out the traumatised age-old Time Lord part of his personality that Doctors like Smith and Capaldi played with. 

It’s also a fantastic-looking episode. I feel like I’ve been saying this for every episode since the Disney+ money came in, but that money manages to make the typical quarry filming location look dazzling. The necessary awe that was needed for that space landscape shot, as we realise this is Ruby’s first time on an alien planet, was wonderful as was the direction. Julie Anne Robinson also directed Space Babies and while she did a decent job there, her more punchy directing style works much better with a script that takes more risks and has a much more dynamic pace.

Let’s also address the big talking point – this turned out to be the first appearance of actress Varada Sethu into the Whoniverse, before her introduction as a regular companion next year. I’ll be honest and say I didn’t even realise it was her until the closing credits, since I actually thought that Mundy Flynn was portrayed by the actress Rukku Nahar, who played Selina in CBBC’s Wolfblood. Quite how similar Sethu looked to Rukku Nahar in this episode was frightening, but she delivered a really solid performance and, although her companion is apparently not Mundy, I do look forward to whatever her character turns out to be in the series next year.

As for flaws, I have very few to be honest. I thought the ending was a little bit quick, but that’s sometimes par for the course for Moffat (Blink has an extremely simple ending but it’s such a good episode that no one cares) and it did make sense plot-wise. I also thought that the episode was a bit too heavy-handed on references to Moffat’s past episodes. I did like the references to Villengard, but the Anglican mercenaries didn’t really need to be a callback to A Good Man Goes To War, nor did the Doctor have to reference “the moon” and “the president’s wife” for no reason at all. I realise it’s just a nitpick, but self-references have always been a quirk of Moffat’s. For example, Peter Capaldi’s first episode Deep Breath has a major reference to The Girl In The Fireplace but unless you’re a die-hard fan you’re not going to pick up on it. So although I would’ve preferred the references to be dialled back a bit, I don’t think they’ll be too alienating for the common viewer. 

Boom is a bloody good episode, and was the sign that I needed to prove that this new Disneyfied era, that’s prioritising fun and accessibility for all viewers, can still manage to pack an emotional and riveting punch. I wish those punches were coming from more new writers, but since Moffat has returned to writing standalone episodes with incisive commentary to make and a spring in his step, I can’t complain too much. 

Alex’s Archive – Doctor Who: Boom